I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[LilimoLimomo]

In 27+ months of playing FFXIV, that is literally something that's never happened to me, and something that I've never had to worry about.

I'm genuinely happy to hear that's the case; sadly, it's not the case for everyone. While some of my friends are top tier, some of my friends are just barely "good enough" to do baseline content. And some of these players have literally stopping queuing for content without a pre-made or a Trust because the number of times they've been criticized or talked down to has left the enduring impression that in any group with randoms there's a non-trivial chance that someone will single them out. And that sucks a whole lot.

It's a problem that the game has, one that the devs themselves recognized in 2021 when they revised the form factor of the game's list of Prohibited Activities (which caused quite a stir as players worried they weren't even allowed to offer suggestions anymore).

Sadly, as we well know, the ToS alone doesn't prevent harmful behavior, it can only mitigate and sometimes punish it. That's why it's also beneficial to use game design itself as a means to provide solutions to problems such as these. By giving players a diverse array of options to select from, each player can find one that better suits their personal needs and playstyle.

[IDontPetLalas]

I'm genuinely happy to hear that's the case; sadly, it's not the case for everyone. While some of my friends are top tier, some of my friends are just barely "good enough" to do baseline content. And some of these players have literally stopping queuing for content without a pre-made or a Trust because the number of times they've been criticized or talked down to has left the enduring impression that in any group with randoms there's a non-trivial chance that someone will single them out. And that sucks a whole lot.

It's a problem that the game has, one that the devs themselves recognized in 2021 when they revised the form factor of the game's list of Prohibited Activities (which caused quite a stir as players worried they weren't even allowed to offer suggestions anymore).

Sadly, as we well know, the ToS alone doesn't prevent harmful behavior, it can only mitigate and sometimes punish it. That's why it's also beneficial to use game design itself as a means to provide solutions to problems such as these. By giving players a diverse array of options to select from, each player can find one that better suits their personal needs and playstyle.

While game design is going to strive to provide the optimal user experience, game design in and of itself is not the solution to player conflict. Aside from varying skill levels (which game design can compensate for to some degree), there will always be a range of emotional maturities, players that have varying social backgrounds, moral codes, etc. That is why every game has a TOS. I would dispute that in FFXIV there is a "non-trivial" chance of encountering TOS violations, however if your definition of "non-trivial" is zero there I would agree with you. However, I would also say that zero is a non-realistic expectation. Whether violations are followed up appropriately - that's a whole other discussion.

[vetch]

While game design is going to strive to provide the optimal user experience, game design in and of itself is not the solution to player conflict. Aside from varying skill levels (which game design can compensate for to some degree), there will always be a range of emotional maturities, players that have varying social backgrounds, moral codes, etc. That is why every game has a TOS. I would dispute that in FFXIV there is a "non-trivial" chance of encountering TOS violations, however if your definition of "non-trivial" is zero there I would agree with you. However, I would also say that zero is a non-realistic expectation. Whether violations are followed up appropriately - that's a whole other discussion.

Indeed, trying to use game design to remove toxicity frequently results in chopping off the skill ceiling and aspects of party inter-reliance which, far from making the game more suitable for everyone, also results in alienating part of the community. And not just the part who're mean to new players about not mastering their kits but rather everyone who wants jobs with more depth than a puddle.

[LilimoLimomo]

While game design is going to strive to provide the optimal user experience, game design in and of itself is not the solution to player conflict.

Oh it's certainly not the tool, because as you've said, zero is never a realistic expectation. But game design does sculpt player behavior, and thus it's a valuable tool in a designer's arsenal to mitigate conflict and promote harmony.

I would dispute that in FFXIV there is a "non-trivial" chance of encountering TOS violations

It sounds like you're implying that in your experience you haven't seen much of this behavior, and I believe you when you say that. I'm sure each player's experience varies.

I'd also hazard that players like us that are good at the game are much less likely to witness such behavior, as we have to simultaneously end up in a group with both a "callout" player and a "barely good enough" player to see this; if only one of those is present, we won't see it.
ie: Probability of Experiencing Callout = Likelihood of Grouping with "Callout" Player x Likelihood of Grouping with "Barely Good Enough" Player

However, when you are a "barely good enough" player, there's always a "barely good enough" player in your group, and that means all it takes is:
ie: Probability of Experiencing Callout = Likelihood of Grouping with "Callout" Player

[Sebazy]

Oh it's certainly not the tool, because as you've said, zero is never a realistic expectation. But game design does sculpt player behavior, and thus it's a valuable tool in a designer's arsenal to mitigate conflict and promote harmony.

This is actually a very interesting topic and is surprisingly well understood and documented, more so than you might realise.

Probably the best quick summary of it is an old Penny Arcade comic from nearly 20 years ago. (Profanity warning etc if you're at work).

The actual game's design doesn't have nearly as much bearing upon player behaviour as you might think. The real issues arise with a feeling of anonymity, the lack of a tight community and the resulting lack of accountability for your actions. This goes hand in hand with people being very tribal creatures. When that 'tribe' becomes too large or simply doesn't exist in the first place (aka you feel like you don't belong) a lot of people can't help themselves but become hugely problematic. It's all too easy to vent your frustrations at someone who has no ability to retaliate nor are you ever likely to see them again if you don't want to.

Meanwhile, older MMOs such as Everquest, FFXI and vanilla WoW had far more room for players to grief each other than FFXIV ever will, yet I'd argue outside of FFXI at a pinch, the drama was always much lower and more contained despite the griefing often being vastly more impactful. Why? It was because in these days, servers were much smaller and self contained. If someone genuinely rocked the boat and caused problems they would quickly get found out across the population quickly getting avoided and blacklisted from most groups and teams. For the most part, the communities self policed. Something that's almost unimaginable today.

Modern MMOs communities draw a scary number of parallels to an old 1970s study called the Behavioural sink.. Stuff too many rats in a cage and no matter how well you provide for them, they will eventually self destruct.

The TLDR of the above is that a vast and largely anonymous player pool breeds unaccountability which causes much of the bad attitudes you see in game. This isn't exclusive to FFXIV by any stretch

[LilimoLimomo]

(i read it all) The TLDR of the above is that a vast and largely anonymous player pool breeds unaccountability which causes much of the bad attitudes you see in game. This isn't exclusive to FFXIV by any stretch

I think you might be misunderstanding what I'm getting at, but that's fair because I haven't been super explicit. The problem of people being anonymous jerks on the internet is indeed A Thing; that goes without question. But as designers we know that we can impact how much of that behavior occurs; we have seen how different designs for the same system can result in increased conflict or decreased conflict.

At least in my experience, it's inaccurate to blame the entire issue on "griefers". Without a doubt, there are plenty of players who criticize the play of others with good intentions; they have a view of how they think the game should be played, they see a player not playing it this way, and they genuinely think they are doing a helpful thing by pointing out a player's imperfections and telling them what they should do. Many of these players probably don't realize how much of communication gets lost over text, and may not be able to adequately conceive of players who perceive the game differently than them and thus find their criticism to be demanding and upsetting rather than helpful. Which is simply to say: conflict can be created even with the best of intentions.

And in my experience from playing with my less skilled friends, most of the poor behavior I've seen is from that kind of player: a player who doesn't seem like they're intentionally setting out to grief, but rather thinks their way is right and isn't being considerate of other experiences and perspectives. The hardcore trolls are much more rare, and thus constitute only a minority of the problem in my experience. Which is good, because if people are looking to cause a problem, they will find a way to do so regardless; but if people aren't, then we can often design solutions that mitigate the chances of conflict.

In addition — and in reviewing I realize I never mentioned this before — designers can influence how toxicity manifests. It's true that even if someone isn't being criticized about their DPS, they could still be criticized about something else in their kit. But not all criticism is the same, and some of it hits different. For example, if someone in my dungeon tells me my heals are bad, but nobody has died, then they don't have much of a leg to stand on; the game has given me transparent feedback that I've healed well enough, and that can make a misguided statement to the contrary easier to swallow. But if that same person points out that I'm not doing my full healer DPS rotation, that's likely going to be harder to shake because the game doesn't give similar feedback about my DPS. And the worst part is, at least part of what they're saying is objectively right: I haven't been doing my DPS rotation, just Dia and Glare but never Glarera or Glarega. So even if they're a jerk, even if it was uncalled for and against the ToS, it's going to sting more. Enough of that can ruin the class or even the game for people. And with clever, compassionate design, we can mitigate this kind of experience. As I said before, nobody can criticize you for not pressing two DPS buttons if you only have one DPS button.

Which is why I think it's good to have an option for those kind of players, something that transparently asks less of them. A diversity of options allows players to pick the level of engagement that works best for them, while allowing other players to get a different level of engagement that works for them. With the energy it takes a player to be a decent BLM, they can be a great SMN, and I think that same approach can work well with other classes.

[Sebazy]

As I said before, nobody can criticize you for not pressing two DPS buttons if you only have one DPS button.

Some people simply can't take criticism, be it grounded in reality, trite jabs or even clearly fictitious nonsense purely aimed at getting under the victim's skin. Even if we had no DPS capabilities whatsoever, there are people that will merrily hurl abuse at you for standing around badly and some people would still allow that to get to them. You can only wrap people up in cotton wool so much, there's a point where people have to do a bit of the leg work themselves and either apply a bit of logic to the flak coming their way or simply grow thick enough skin to ignore it. Different people will handle this stuff in all sorts of ways, some better, some far worse.

Fun story for this tangent:

I helped some randoms in PF carry a PLD through T5 in ARR late in the patch but when it was still current, the PLD was clearly struggling with the fight and as someone who had experienced something similar with a static tank playing on PS3, I offered some tips that we had used to make things easier. The BLM who was organising the carry neatly pointed out if I healed as well as I gave advice, we'd have killed Twin already. Rather than take offence or fire back, I took this as my cue to completely overheal everything, chad the healing as much as I could and step on the SCH's toes as much as possible.

An expansion and house fire later, once I started looking to raid again for Midas, I got recruited by the group that I did that T5 with, BLM, SCH and all. I'd proceed to raid with them from then onwards and we're all still a static to this day.

If there's one thing FFXI taught me well, it's that being able to extract something positive from negativity is a huge skill to have. Even if it's just finding humour in it, it makes a massive difference.

[LilimoLimomo]

Some people simply can't take criticism, be it grounded in reality, trite jabs or even clearly fictitious nonsense purely aimed at getting under the victim's skin. Even if we had no DPS capabilities whatsoever, there are people that will merrily hurl abuse at you for standing around badly and some people would still allow that to get to them. You can only wrap people up in cotton wool so much, there's a point where people have to do a bit of the leg work themselves and either apply a bit of logic to the flak coming their way or simply grow thick enough skin to ignore it. Different people will handle this stuff in all sorts of ways, some better, some far worse.

I guess I don't really see the point of bringing this up? It seems like a way to dismiss the issue as being not really an issue at all, but more of a personal problem for people who have skin with deficient thickness. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying though.

For my part, I'm not interested in who can or can take it the best; as the FF14 team has stated, players shouldn't need to take it. Ergo, that's the guiding principle that will guide my discussion of these issues.