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

[gotaname1]

Every game has them, but in FFXIV people actively white-knight for them when they start going off, so they become bolder and bolder

This is exactly one of the things that I think will be the slow death of the community. Not because the devs suck or that the game is bad, but because the people that play went too far with how they perceive some pixels that look like words on their screen is attacking their sensibilities and then being rewarded for their behavior by some white-knight circklej hellbent on gaslighting people on a internet messageboard that are sharing their (negative) personal experiences and encounters they have in the game with other players. And because the players are the issue, I am very doubtful this will change or be 'fixed'.

[Ronduwil]

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

That may be so, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that so often. Personally, I've never seen it, but I haven't done any of the endgame yet, and maybe that's where those folks hang out. However, that has nothing to do with the OP's suggestion, which was to massively overreact as follows:

Suggestion to the devs: expand “FATE-like” performance based rewards to most aspects of the game.

At the end of an instance, you’re rewarded with a medal based on a general measure of your contribution to the party depending on damage, healing (excluding overhealing), damage mitigation and resurrection/raise casts. If you don’t pass a certain threshold, let us call it the “basic decency level”, you should be denied any kind of reward.

I honestly unsubbed from WoW and switched exclusively to playing this game to get away from that. While the system is acceptable for FATEs, which just award a nominal amount of gil and XP to random individuals and/or groups that spontaneously form and disband, it would turn the duty roulette into a cesspool of elitism and toxicity: "Kick player X because if we wipe one more time, we're missing out on our bonus." If you want to see the system in action, just play a month of WoW.

On the surface the proposal sounds perfectly reasonable, but its foundation is problematic: "If you don’t pass a certain threshold, let us call it the “basic decency level”, you should be denied any kind of reward." How do you judge the "basic decency level?" Some jobs do better on certain fights than others. Some jobs simply suck at certain levels. I was doing on-level FATEs in the Sea of Clouds as a paladin, for instance, and while I was getting full credit on the AoE FATEs, I wasn't getting full credit on the boss ones, despite tanking them exclusively. It wasn't for lack of trying. I just couldn't hold a candle to the DPS of a synced dancer in 270 gear with my 145 item level paladin.

Also, the current system already rewards you for performance in the way of commendations. If you're really killing it and you're still not getting commendations, then I recommend that you stick around at the end of instances until everyone finishes watching their cutscenes so that you can get their vote. The OP is proposing to fix something that's not broken, and his fix goes way beyond alleviating the legitimate issue that you described for a premade group. The situation you described is easily resolved by booting the tank and finding another.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

I remember a lot of posts like this back in the Eureka days, where people would AFK at spawn points which is actually not as bad as this because it was generally accepted that if you were two levels or more above the mob level, you let those people who can benefit from killing the mobs go at it while you wait for the NM spawn. (They also introduced the inaction timer to battle this).

I've noticed freeriding more on my alt and not in Bozja content (which I don't do). But a lot in trials and normal raids. Characters will either just stand there and auto attack or die to mechs and not accept raises. I've had some that purposely dc then re-enter the instance. There are two main factors: you can't kick while in battle or when loot is present. People have been abusing those two rules a lot more lately for some reason.

[Nethereal]

That may be so, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that so often. Personally, I've never seen it, but I haven't done any of the endgame yet, and maybe that's where those folks hang out. However, that has nothing to do with the OP's suggestion, which was to massively overreact as follows:



I honestly unsubbed from WoW and switched exclusively to playing this game to get away from that. While the system is acceptable for FATEs, which just award a nominal amount of gil and XP to random individuals and/or groups that spontaneously form and disband, it would turn the duty roulette into a cesspool of elitism and toxicity: "Kick player X because if we wipe one more time, we're missing out on our bonus." If you want to see the system in action, just play a month of WoW.

On the surface the proposal sounds perfectly reasonable, but its foundation is problematic: "If you don’t pass a certain threshold, let us call it the “basic decency level”, you should be denied any kind of reward." How do you judge the "basic decency level?" Some jobs do better on certain fights than others. Some jobs simply suck at certain levels. I was doing on-level FATEs in the Sea of Clouds as a paladin, for instance, and while I was getting full credit on the AoE FATEs, I wasn't getting full credit on the boss ones, despite tanking them exclusively. It wasn't for lack of trying. I just couldn't hold a candle to the DPS of a synced dancer in 270 gear with my 145 item level paladin.

Also, the current system already rewards you for performance in the way of commendations. If you're really killing it and you're still not getting commendations, then I recommend that you stick around at the end of instances until everyone finishes watching their cutscenes so that you can get their vote. The OP is proposing to fix something that's not broken, and his fix goes way beyond alleviating the legitimate issue that you described for a premade group. The situation you described is easily resolved by booting the tank and finding another.

It's a little disingenuous to continue to quote the OP when they elaborated against exactly what you just said already:

I was just giving an example there. There's a reason if I didn't put numbers in the OT. Ideally there should be a continuum of multipliers that either increases or decreases the reward.

Since you're asking, I chose 20% because it's a very low number and I wanted to make it obvious that I'm not asking for a system where only the very good players get rewards. If you're doing less than 20% of what you could do, however, it just means that you're not playing the game and you're probably watching netflix or whatever while pressing a couple of keys once in a while.

Here's the thing, it's not subjective. It would be based on a formula, and formulae by definition are not subjective. But the main thing I feel many are not getting is that what I'm suggesting would make playing with less skilled players desirable for top players. This is the whole point. In other terms, pick up their slack and you get better rewards. That's it. WoW is different in that you really want to play with good players because your reward is dependent on the group's performance. But I'm suggesting something very different. So if, say, you're in dalriada and do great and most other people do very bad, it will take you like 45 minutes to clear instead of the 15 minutes of an optimized run, but you get (just as an example of course) 3x mettle, 3x exp bonus, 3x the amount of whatever you're farming for your relic, increased drop rate for mount of hairstyle. That's the general idea behind it.

On the other hand, the "bottom" should be penalized in absolute terms. If, say, your potential is 100 and you're doing 20, it's not about not being very good at the game. It's just that you're leeching, plain and simple. You absolutely know what you're doing. What I'm saying is, in those very obvious cases, remove the reward. Set the bar low, but set it somewhere. Because it's absolutely preposterous that if I wanted to I could enter castrum, use a rubber band to fix my analogue stick and come back in 30 minutes to collect my rewards.

Commendations are not rewards. And they never will be if they can only be given by fellow players.

[Tlachtga]

Also, the current system already rewards you for performance in the way of commendations.

commendations are really bad as a reward because most people hand them out to others based purely on their role, rather than the individual's performance. and after 3k, you stop getting in-game rewards for it anyway.

[Vahlnir]

commendations are really bad as a reward because most people hand them out to others based purely on their role, rather than the individual's performance. and after 3k, you stop getting in-game rewards for it anyway.

Anymore I'm basically forced to throw them at random people because everyone leaves too fast and doesn't bother to give them out themselves.

[Wavaryen]

This is exactly one of the things that I think will be the slow death of the community. Not because the devs suck or that the game is bad, but because the people that play went too far with how they perceive some pixels that look like words on their screen is attacking their sensibilities and then being rewarded for their behavior by some white-knight circklej hellbent on gaslighting people on a internet messageboard that are sharing their (negative) personal experiences and encounters they have in the game with other players. And because the players are the issue, I am very doubtful this will change or be 'fixed'.

I think it is only a problem with the forums and social media myself. And it happens on all sides.


The game rules and being enforced how it is. Saves itself from the negative sides of both the toxic negative and toxic positive side of things. People who act like getting a bad group is the worse thing ever, like people playing half hearted is lack of respect for them, it takes a pretty big ego to think in a pug you are the center of it for sure.

This game is design with that content being easy to do so you don't have to try too hard to get it done. So it is fine, and the Devs not only support this, they protect them from players on this forum who think the game has a free rider problem.



Do I agree with it? Not really, but I accept it because that is what the developers want and that is how the game is design. Who am I to complain about it? It is a pug group, and I have no right to tell anyone to do better in a group made with no standards. I know my place, and accept it.

[TeraRamis]

That may be so, and I'm sorry that you've experienced that so often. Personally, I've never seen it, but I haven't done any of the endgame yet, and maybe that's where those folks hang out. However, that has nothing to do with the OP's suggestion, which was to massively overreact as follows:

It happens in any raid I've been in where someone either AFKs or dies immediately and refuses to accept a rez, followed by someone boldly suggesting a kick. All of a sudden, all you see are bleeding hearts screeching at the top of their lungs "HE'S JUST A SPROUT, HOW DARE YOU!" and "CUT THE GUY SOME SLACK, IT'S JUST A GAME," and of course "LOL LOOK AT THIS TRYHARD."

I'm tired of submitting to it. Nobody has a DPS meter in front of them and is asking to kick a person at the bottom it. These are people who are actively doing nothing, and yet their wholesale laziness and commitment to playing the game in a way that weakens a team and leeches off the strength of others always finds its defenders. And the people who only ask that everyone in a group either contribute or leave? They're accused of being too serious; too involved; caring too much - as if anyone should willingly want to waste their time and effort on the behalf of someone who is so bored with the content that they cannot even be bothered to fake trying.

Out society has become so obsessed with defending the abused and the broken - is now so eager to shield these newly-christened victims - that it has turned those who are aggressively manipulative and duplicitous into saints. Every crook is stealing a loaf of bread to feed starving children; every knife-wielding, crazed homeless person is just out there because they lost their job; every psychotic meth-head who beats his wife had a troubled childhood. And no, those serious things are in no way equivalent to abusing game mechanics - but it's the mindset of urgently championing every cause that has trickled its way down into this game. Not everyone is a good person, and they don't all deserve the benefit of the doubt. Hard truths brought to you by the FFXIV general discussion forum.

[Wavaryen]

It happens in any raid I've been in where someone either AFKs or dies immediately and refuses to accept a rez, followed by someone boldly suggesting a kick. All of a sudden, all you see are bleeding hearts screeching at the top of their lungs "HE'S JUST A SPROUT, HOW DARE YOU!" and "CUT THE GUY SOME SLACK, IT'S JUST A GAME," and of course "LOL LOOK AT THIS TRYHARD."

I'm tired of submitting to it. Nobody has a DPS meter in front of them and is asking to kick a person at the bottom it. These are people who are actively doing nothing, and yet their wholesale laziness and commitment to playing the game in a way that weakens a team and leeches off the strength of others always finds its defenders. And the people who only ask that everyone in a group either contribute or leave? They're accused of being too serious; too involved; caring too much - as if anyone should willingly want to waste their time and effort on the behalf of someone who is so bored with the content that they cannot even be bothered to fake trying.

Out society has become so obsessed with defending the abused and the broken - is now so eager to shield these newly-christened victims - that it has turned those who are aggressively manipulative and duplicitous into saints. Every crook is stealing a loaf of bread to feed starving children; every knife-wielding, crazed homeless person is just out there because they lost their job; every psychotic meth-head who beats his wife had a troubled childhood. And no, those serious things are in no way equivalent to abusing game mechanics - but it's the mindset of urgently championing every cause that has trickled its way down into this game. Not everyone is a good person, and they don't all deserve the benefit of the doubt. Hard truths brought to you by the FFXIV general discussion forum.

Or maybe most of us don't think it is that big of a deal, that it is a video game, and if the content can't get done. We will find a new group that gets it done. It has nothing to do with being a good person, The simple fact is a bad group is not that big of a deal. If someone wants to be lazy, more power to them. If they hold us all back, well I can just hit a button and find another group.

[TeraRamis]

If someone wants to be lazy, more power to them.

Well, consider yourself counted amongst the problem children, then. If you're going to justify it, then you're a part of it.