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

[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.

[iVolke]

It sounds like you're playing with the intent to push your limits. Assuming that everyone is playing with that goal in mind is a big mistake. Many of us are playing to relax at the end of a long workday, not to push our limits. A comfortable run is a relaxing one. I know that there are guilds who share a common goal of constantly pushing their limits, and that's perfectly fine. More power to them and to you. In duty roulette, though, you need to realize that you're going to be playing with a wide variety of players.

As far as "teaching" and "coddling," I don't think it's the game's place to "teach" players to experiment. I think it's great that the game enables players who want to experiment in their own groups, but I don't want it forced on anyone. When I see your posts, I'm reading, "Everyone needs to be taught to play my way, and I'm frustrated that the game isn't forcing everyone to do so." It's kind of ironic for you to critically use the phrase, "coddled like children," when describing a game that's rated T for teen. You're playing a kid's game. I don't know what more you're expecting out of it.

Not afking, using essences in bozja, and pulling more than one group of mobs is not "pushing your limits." You've gotta be kidding me.

You call this a kids game, when the majority of the playerbase is 18+? And how is that even relevant? Being under 18 doesn't mean you don't know how to press buttons or use items that the game literally tells you to use.

FFXIV has a culture of doing the bare minimum. Every game has freeloaders/afkers/leeches, but FFXIV is the only game I know where if someone calls another player out on it, people will actively come to their defense and deny kicking them. It's incredibly strange.

[Caurcas]

In other news rain is wet and it just keeps tumbling down.

[Nethereal]

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.

We as a community IMO should indeed strive to "teach newbies they can go past their limits" however I also on an individual level ask people

"Can you pull bigger?" "Do you mind If I give you advice {t}?"

before I proceed to shove it down their throat.

Hell if they don't respond(positively) I don't even say anything. But don't get offended by the question.

[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

[Fated]

FFXIV has always acted in the interest of the ones who give minimal effort. Afterall, that's the majority of the playerbase. I gave up trying to fight it and now I just play for story and then unsub.

[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.

[Ronduwil]

Not afking, using essences in bozja, and pulling more than one group of mobs is not "pushing your limits." You've gotta be kidding me.

I'm impressed with how easily you dispatch those strawmen. Please show me a single post where I've indicated that refraining from AFKing was anything but the bare minimum expectation for someone in a group. Please show me a single post where I so much as mentioned Bozja or essences. I'm not even the one who defined pulling more than one group of mobs as "pushing your limits." That honor goes to this fellow, who responded to this:

The sprout already knows that it's possible to pull beyond their comfort level. They just don't want to do it. No one's "teaching" anybody anything here. They're trying to impose their preferences on the tank. Some people like running the instance at a breakneck speed as if their queue popped a moment before they realized they urgently had to use the restroom, and others like to take their time and relax through their gaming experience. I agreed with Zepla when she said something to the effect of, "If you don't like the tank's pace, then play as a tank next time."

With this:

Comfort level =/= your limit.
Your comfort level or your comfort zone is safe, plenty of people like to stay in their comfort zone and plenty of people leave it but you need to teach newbies that their comfort level/zone does not equate to their limits.

You call this a kids game, when the majority of the playerbase is 18+? And how is that even relevant?

Again, this was a direct response to this quote:

They need to be taught to not be afraid of experimenting, not coddled like children who can't tell people when they're uncomfortable.

I was simply pointing out the silliness of criticizing a children's game for coddling players "like children."

I seriously can't understand why you guys keep morphing a statement to the effect of "Allowing a tank in the duty roulette to pull at their own pace is common courtesy," into an impassioned defense of AFKing and disregarding mechanics.

[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