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

[Nethereal]

What about people who think they get to be the arbiter for perfect strangers on when they are ready/willing to play outside their comfort zone? If you like to test your limits, that's fine. You don't get to decide for anyone else.

I'm fine with that if you communicate that to me or the group.
What I'm not fine with are other strangers making assumptions and speaking on behalf of said stranger when they're right there perfectly able to communicate and they have either said nothing, stayed the same way they were, or shifted in a certain direction in terms of gameplay.

Especially ones that hold it against you the entire time you're there, like one simple question has somehow ruined the entire run.
A simple "No." or "K" would do me just fine but you don't get to get all uppity and upset on someone's behalf because of a simple question like, "Can you pull bigger?" "Do you mind If I give you advice {t}?"
People like the above are honestly why I don't bother communicating with pugs unless absolutely necessary.

[TaleraRistain]

I'm fine with that if you communicate that to me or the group.
What I'm not fine with are other strangers making assumptions and speaking on behalf of said stranger when they're right there perfectly able to communicate and they have either said nothing, stayed the same way they were, or shifted in a certain direction in terms of gameplay.

Especially ones that hold it against you the entire time you're there, like one simple question has somehow ruined the entire run.
A simple "No." or "K" would do me just fine but you don't get to get all uppity and upset on someone's behalf because of a simple question like, "Can you pull bigger?" "Do you mind If I give you advice {t}?"
People like the above are honestly why I don't bother communicating with pugs unless absolutely necessary.

Why do you think random mooks you let the game match you with owe you an explanation for not doing something you want?

[Nethereal]

Why do you think random mooks you let the game match you with owe you an explanation for not doing something you want?

My bad for expecting basic respect or any form of communication outside of social cues provided by emotes in content we mutually agreed to do together via queue.
Simply taking the extra few seconds to type "No." or "No thank you." or "K." or "Nah fam." are obviously too radical for our times.
I'll retreat back to my bunker now where I keep all the tinfoil and all the canned food. Sorry.

[Wavaryen]

My bad for expecting basic respect or any form of communication outside of social cues provided by emotes in content we mutually agreed to do together via queue.
Simply taking the extra few seconds to type "No." or "No thank you." or "K." or "Nah fam." are obviously too radical for our times.
I'll retreat back to my bunker now where I keep all the tinfoil and all the canned food. Sorry.

But I don't see it is as respect thing? You join a pug group. Nothing in the rules says people have to give up privacy. If the group is not up to your standards. You can leave and get another one. Nothing needs to be said, heck I've done it before, and even wished them good luck. and let them know that I just did not have time to finish and for that I'm sorry. I don't expect people to be the same as me, but I do it because it is my normal. The people in the pug group are not your friends. Just strangers using each other to progress for the day. Nothing more. As I said before. Just because others play the game, you don't got to be mindful or care. All you got to do is follow the rules of the game. In a pug settings nothing about the rules says that I got to meet the other players standards, or say anything to them.

[TaleraRistain]

My bad for expecting basic respect or any form of communication outside of social cues provided by emotes in content we mutually agreed to do together via queue.
Simply taking the extra few seconds to type "No." or "No thank you." or "K." or "Nah fam." are obviously too radical for our times.
I'll retreat back to my bunker now where I keep all the tinfoil and all the canned food. Sorry.

You said in an earlier post that we have to "teach newbies they can go past their limits" or whatever it was. Isn't it basic respect to ask someone if they want advice or direction first? You talked about not coddling people like children but you're treating them like children trying to decide things for them. It sounds like you're just putting your unsolicited and potentially unwanted commentary out there and then getting mad when people don't acknowledge it. They don't owe you anything and especially not when you didn't respect them in the first place.

[ZedxKayn]

You said in an earlier post that we have to "teach newbies they can go past their limits" or whatever it was. Isn't it basic respect to ask someone if they want advice or direction first? You talked about not coddling people like children but you're treating them like children trying to decide things for them. It sounds like you're just putting your unsolicited and potentially unwanted commentary out there and then getting mad when people don't acknowledge it. They don't owe you anything and especially not when you didn't respect them in the first place.

No advice or request is uncalled for when you're playing a co-op video game and how you play affects the experience of other people, especially if you're new. The advices or request aren't always good, but not even giving them so much of a thought because it's not how you want to play is the disrespectful thing.

[TaleraRistain]

No advice or request is uncalled for when you're playing a co-op video game and how you play affects the experience of other people, especially if you're new. The advices or request aren't always good, but not even giving them so much of a thought because it's not how you want to play is the disrespectful thing.

I give advice all the time. The main difference with my experiences and many others here is that I respect the person enough to ask first. I respect them if they say no. I've even had one or two that were frankly shocked that I was cool with them saying no and proceeded to ask what my tips and suggestions were.

Respect goes both ways. Act like a know-it-all able to do nothing but find fault in others and they're not going to take it well. Act like someone who truly is trying to help and who shows care and consideration toward others and people will be a lot more receptive.

[Rinhi]

I give advice all the time. The main difference with my experiences and many others here is that I respect the person enough to ask first. I respect them if they say no. I've even had one or two that were frankly shocked that I was cool with them saying no and proceeded to ask what my tips and suggestions were.

Respect goes both ways. Act like a know-it-all able to do nothing but find fault in others and they're not going to take it well. Act like someone who truly is trying to help and who shows care and consideration toward others and people will be a lot more receptive.

exactly, it goes both ways and yet, when someone "truly tries to help and shows care and consideration towards others", many of the people on the forums will STILL blame the person trying to help, hell, no offence, but even you do that by calling someone trying to help a "know-it-all" because they must be doing something bad if they get a toxic response, it can't ever be the person that responds toxic first to the question if someone needs help or advice, it must always be the person giving or even just wanting to give advice!
"the tone of the question/advice was toxic" "why even give advice lol even if it takes 45+ minutes the dungeon got completed it means everything's fine" "you're the toxic one for trying to impose your playstyle (read: better habits) onto others" "it's fine for players to struggle hard in content they shouldn't struggle in at all and trying to help them is wrong because strawmanning"
no, instead you have those people gaslight those who want to help and because those players are toxic in the eyes of the first group, it's completely fine to insult and give them backhanded compliments because they're on "the wrong side"
this post mostly a generalisation and not aimed directly at you, from what I've seen in the several threads about this and similar topics and I truly do not understand how some people can be up their own arse like that with some of their moral grandstanding posts when they're defending downright toxic players for no reason other than to show how virtuous they are and have truly never seen anything remotely similar on any forum I've used before

[technole]

No advice or request is uncalled for when you're playing a co-op video game and how you play affects the experience of other people, especially if you're new. The advices or request aren't always good, but not even giving them so much of a thought because it's not how you want to play is the disrespectful thing.

It's probably one of the top-3 issues in the more casual player base, any unsolicited advice is taken as some sort of fight-or-flight threat. Which it's not, most people actually type advice without additional emotional commentary.

This game has jump rope mechanics in many places. I don't care if you like to play alone, be FC-less or what not, you are now in content that requires completing the mechanic like everyone else to proceed. No one said you were unworthy, or less desirable. We just simply said "we need X people in this stack" Or "X should take that mechanic to B" as I place the marker.

[LittleImp]

It's probably one of the top-3 issues in the more casual player base, any unsolicited advice is taken as some sort of fight-or-flight threat. Which it's not, most people actually type advice without additional emotional commentary.

This game has jump rope mechanics in many places. I don't care if you like to play alone, be FC-less or what not, you are now in content that requires completing the mechanic like everyone else to proceed. No one said you were unworthy, or less desirable. We just simply said "we need X people in this stack" Or "X should take that mechanic to B" as I place the marker.

Remember, it's always just your tone and phrasing. /s


The reality is, people who say they give out a lot of advice and have never received backlash are either astronomically lucky or are being misleading. There are many many catalogued interactions with full receipts of people giving some of the most banal, encouraging advice possible and still getting nasty insults in return.

I've silently joined random learning parties for fights I've already cleared, only to have other players become aggressive and insult me when they realized I had cleared but wasn't "giving enough explanations".
I've hosted my own teaching parties and had players come in, embarrass themselves over and over and then promptly attack me for "explaining mechanics poorly" in my purely volunteer party.

One of my favorite stories was back in SB. I setup a God Kefka kill party in PF, and we managed to get through P1 with some amount of struggle. People rapidly figured out that the main-tank had no idea how P2 worked, so people begin to reasonably question him and ask him if he knew the fight. Queue this guy going absolutely APESH*T, chain pulling the boss while ranting into chat about "How is anyone ever supposed to learn a fight if no one will teach them?", while calling us "awful toxic players", all because we refused to teach him the entire fight in a clear party that he lied to get into.

This game just has a notable minority of extremely entitled, aggressive karen types. Every game has them, but in FFXIV people actively white-knight for them when they start going off, so they become bolder and bolder