"Everyone's so open and friendly" is a lie

[tangentcat]

You need to keep in mind that in the last 6 months the community has changed a lot. I've been around since day 1 of ARR and imo the community has been changing for the worse since Stormblood, but until recently it was still way friendlier than most other communities from other games.
After the recent influx of new players the community has changed again, this time in my opinion overwhelmingly for the worse. There's a ton more toxic players, a ton more of would be elitists, a ton more vulgar people.
Why do you think they had to update the ToS? It was clearly in reaction to the changes in the community.

That sums up my experience. The community was never perfect, but the frequency of negative experiences I've had has been steadily increasing since June, especially on Crystal which had the most preferred worlds/new player destination. A lot of it in my experience has come from overly defensive players lashing out (e.g. a healer struggling to keep a tank alive, instead of asking for help, insulted the tank then rage quit). The negative effect is I got so sick of bad players being snippy, it's made me more grumpy (and maybe elitist seeming) to the point I had to stop playing with PUGs.

[FelicityC]

QUOTE TRUNCATED

This sentiment exactly. I have two modes when it comes to my impatience. Teacher mode- this is where I bottle up my annoyance and smile, politely inform people of suggestions or how to approach a situation. Or ask them if they want help, or if people who aren't speaking up need help in what to do. This is the mode when they are new players. It is easy to tell when you have so many years in these games, as you know. I love to teach new players, even if it can be frustrating at times. It feels incredibly rewarding to me to fail something badly, encourage and teach them what to do, and then watch them do it with ease without me even having to do 'extra' work. Everyone else is happy too. These are the fun times with sprouts; and a little bit of communication can go a long way in avoiding toxicity. A simple "If you're new, don't be shy, ask for help!" can mean the difference between someone silently struggling and a clean, easy run. I would much rather teach someone a single mechanic and clear the dungeon faster than start raging and bitc hing about how bad people are, only to make you waste more time by failing further. It is self-defeating and ignorant.

I have a second mode, however, and that is with clearly experienced players (the mentor stereotype, lol) who are being toxic. It is these people I have no patience for, because they should know better. Mentors that jump on the healer and tell them they're bad or need to heal more. Meanwhile, everyone is failing to do mechanics, that guy has been on the floor the whole fight. I recall specifically a mentor (while I had a crown on too) who berated me for not trying to raise anyone, when it was just me and one dps alive left. I was resetting, because resetting is the only thing we could do to not waste more time. The only reason people were dying was because some new players didn't know the mechanics, and there was no healing through that. He told the other (new, sprout) healer the same and told them to heal more.

I went off on him and asked if he was even paying attention, because no one had died from lack of healing, they were all dying from mechanics. That's me 'going off on someone'. I never call anyone anything or personally attack them. So many people do, and then complain they're being censored. You can make your complaints known without being offensive. It's not passive aggressive, it's just thoughtful criticism. There is a big difference, and the difference is your own confidence.

I have countless little stories of helping people. I have been toxic as everyone has, but every time I was, it only hurt everyone and made everything take longer.

I believe the phrase "don't worry about not doing well if you're new, as long as you're learning something" can mean a lot to new players, and I say it often. New players are anxious about being bad, but they're just learning, and it takes time.

[Snorky]

Snipped a few pieces of your quote. I wanted to touch on the different levels of toxicity. A lot of people think Toxicity is limited to the art of berating and slamming people.

So lets talk about the gate keeping when people who are late to the game want to purchase or wish for a redo of certain seasonal or crossover events, the people who were putting up massive childish tantrums when the races they wanted lacked an XX or XY chromosome or how crossovers of any kind have no place in this game and when most people who don't get their own way threaten to unsub and never come back to this game ever again.

In game harassment is also an issue. I could write a book on the last 10 years of playing this game and the encounters I've had both in game and out. At least for Azeroth you can see the issues as clear as day (more so now) - FFXIV attracts a special kind of goblins.

I'd go as far to say that it's toxic with a different coat of paint. Toxicity isn't just limited to one situation. I'm glad we have GMs who are active and take action against abuse and harassers.

This^^^^ all day

[Knot_D]

Consider search for new group? You can't just paint entire community's kindness is a lie only from your story. Me? Never had problem with my FC till now.

[linayar]

idk why people are intent on proving the OP right with their passive aggressive responses, but I guess it's supposed to be funny?

I don't see how responses on a public forum where people are willing to engage and disagree with one another can be considered passive aggressive.

If the responses in this thread are considered passive aggressive, then I don't see any problem with passive aggressiveness as that's just normal disagreements and would much prefer that to actual toxicity.

Also, if people think that being passive aggressive is a way to not break the ToS, then there must be a reason why the ToS doesn't consider passive aggressive behaviors as something to be regulated.

[SturmChurro]

Luckily, I haven't had very many interactions with this community outside of the forums. However, when I was in an FC, it was a longtime friend's FC - the one who actually got me to finally try this game. His online GF, who he met through this game, definitely didn't like me. Not since the singular interaction I ever had with her. She apparently got him to kick me out of his FC for "inactivity", even though it was a tiny FC with maybe half a dozen active members, so activity didn't even matter, for that matter... but not only that! I had told him I was taking a break from the game for awhile, and even stated when I'd be coming back! I was never consulted, she never interacted with me, and not only that his other friends apparently turned on me as well... So yeah, I 100% get where you are coming from anyway. Even with a tiny amount of interaction with the in-game community, I have still seen it in play.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Fights and arguments, TC?

Why are you fighting and arguing with anyone? Just block them.

[Serenitey]

I play a few other games and this community, for whatever reason, has the most toxic people I have seen. You may agree or disagree based on your own experience but you can not tell others what they have experienced.

[FusiaRain]

Honestly I don't know one way or another I'm antisocial not by choice but due to physically issues. I try to socialize online but it always goes bad due the fact I have little to no experience on how to correctly communicate. This use to be fine because that was common among gamers but this days... Its just to hard/stressfull.

As for passive aggressive I agree its far worse but at the same time not really.

[Yvresse]

I've been playing this game for 3 months now and I've yet to experience any toxic behavior. Maybe it's different at higher levels but I've done coils of bahamut 5, Whorleater extreme, Ramuh extreme. All instances where we wiped multiple times in a row, and nobody went raging. I, being a noob, went into Ramuh Extreme as a Paladin Tank, just straight up ran to the boss and started attacking him, because that's what everyone has been doing in 4 man parties, raids etc. I thought everything was easymode. Someone in the party, I believe he was a mentor, explained that raid so perfectly to us, and he did constant call outs 'ok you get orb' 'taunt' 'ok dps go get some orbs' etc etc. and we finished it, that guy like a legend.
And same in Whorleater Extreme, I went in blind. Couldn't understand why I got instakilled. People explained the tactics, were friendly and understanding. We wiped about 7 or 8 times, nobody left. Eventually we got it. It took me a while to understand the splash mechanic and when the 4 orbs tether it's just chaos. But we managed.

And that seems to be the general theme of the game so far for me, I've never had someone be 'passive aggressive' with me, or ignore me or tell me off in any way shape or form. Novice Network as well, heck I asked a question about mining, and this dude whisper me and asks me what gear im using. I told him and he loled because it was lvl 38 gear and i was lvl 52. He crafted me and entire set of gear and mailed it to me. Like who does that???

Lol, I was so surprised. So I have only had the exact opposite of toxic behaviour, ive only been met with fun, humorous, cool and understanding people