Should the devs appologise to the community

[Carin-Eri]

This is what happens when the target audience shifts from Final Fantasy fans and mmorpg players to people who actually care about adventurer plates and sit in venues all day. How could they possibly be burdened with the thought of having to invest time in battle content when they can entertain themselves for hours on end by treating the game as a chat lobby?

So... those players are having fun wrong?

I don't think it works like that, personally.

[Snorky]

So... those players are having fun wrong?

I don't think it works like that, personally.

Right?! OMG people are having fun making their own venue. I know lots of people who just go to listen to music on a twitch channel and have their characters dancing and chatting with friends. How is that bad? They may not be participating in battle content at that moment but so what? How is that bad? It's no worse then FC organizing events for their FC's. Some people just want to control what others do with their time. I don't get it.

[LittleImp]

Right?! OMG people are having fun making their own venue. I know lots of people who just go to listen to music on a twitch channel and have their characters dancing and chatting with friends. How is that bad? They may not be participating in battle content at that moment but so what? How is that bad? It's no worse then FC organizing events for their FC's. Some people just want to control what others do with their time. I don't get it.

I know this sounds really harsh but, creating safe harbor for unpoliced degeneracy attracts more and more degenerates to your game, which is an objectively bad thing for a game not marketed specifically to that purpose.

People who are only looking to use this game as a sexual outlet have been flocking to it in the thousands. In the past few years, there's been an absolutely horrific uptick in cases of sexual harassment, stalking, grooming and other nastiness. Even to outsiders, this game has become increasingly known as being a hub for cybersex. I've had to deal with quite a few 'incidents' pertaining to people from the club scene that end up interacting with my circle, and it's left me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

[IkaraGreydancer]

I know this sounds really harsh but, creating safe harbor for unpoliced degeneracy attracts more and more degenerates to your game, which is an objectively bad thing for a game not marketed specifically to that purpose.

People who are only looking to use this game as a sexual outlet have been flocking to it in the thousands. In the past few years, there's been an absolutely horrific uptick in cases of sexual harassment, stalking, grooming and other nastiness. Even to outsiders, this game has become increasingly known as being a hub for cybersex. I've had to deal with quite a few 'incidents' pertaining to people from the club scene that end up interacting with my circle, and it's left me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

Odd cause I've heard literally no one say this...
Where are these cases? Where is this info coming from? How do YOU know any of these claims are true? This can't be a "I've seen it a few times so that means the game is now known for degeneracy" cause that's not how it works.

Also can I just say, Snorky simply spoke of venues which could be anything per definition. Why did you jump immediately to "degens"? Is that what you consider most venue goers or something?

[Atelier-Bagur]

I know this sounds really harsh but, creating safe harbor for unpoliced degeneracy attracts more and more degenerates to your game, which is an objectively bad thing for a game not marketed specifically to that purpose.

People who are only looking to use this game as a sexual outlet have been flocking to it in the thousands. In the past few years, there's been an absolutely horrific uptick in cases of sexual harassment, stalking, grooming and other nastiness. Even to outsiders, this game has become increasingly known as being a hub for cybersex. I've had to deal with quite a few 'incidents' pertaining to people from the club scene that end up interacting with my circle, and it's left me with an extremely bad taste in my mouth.

True but I would also argue that generalizing the RP'ers to be all degenerates when there's some actual decent ones out there minding their own business not causing trouble is needless trying to split some hairs with the community.

Because this same mentality can be said for the high end raiders where you'll find just as toxic people in that space

[Nebelheim]

Odd cause I've heard literally no one say this...
Where are these cases? Where is this info coming from? How do YOU know any of these claims are true? This can't be a "I've seen it a few times so that means the game is now known for degeneracy" cause that's not how it works.

Also can I just say, Snorky simply spoke of venues which could be anything per definition. Why did you jump immediately to "degens"? Is that what you consider most venue goers or something?

I have had similar experiences as littleimp after checking out venues out of curiosity and had dealt with stalkers and people getting really weird and not leave me alone to the point where i had to blacklist and report people. I might have just been unlucky but there are roleplayers that take things way too far and take things beyond your comfort zone even after setting boundaries. A lot of roleplayers are decent and at least keep things behind closed doors but i had experiences of also people trying to force things when i wanted nothing to do with whatever they wanted.

[LittleImp]

Odd cause I've heard literally no one say this...
Where are these cases? Where is this info coming from?

Existing in the community. Spending 5 minutes talking to other people. Being an officer in medium/large Free Companys for many years. I've been administrating communities, running raid teams, and arbitrating disputes between players since Heavensward.

How do YOU know any of these claims are true?

Because I've seen it happen first hand, and even been harassed myself.
I've had to remove people from FFXIV related communities on many occasions for violating peoples boundaries and being extremely disgusting, and without fail they were overwhelmingly people who were deeply involved in the 'Venue' scene and had their super modded characters plastered all over the place. I've never experienced something like this to this extent on any other game, except for maybe PSO2 which also attracts these types of people like a magnet.

This can't be a "I've seen it a few times so that means the game is now "known for degeneracy" cause that's not how it works.

Do you know what happens you open this games tag on Twitter? Do you play other multiplayer games and engage with their community? This game has developed an external reputation for being full of degenerate behavior. One of the most notorious articles ever published about this game was about its brothel scene lol. There was a point where I stopped telling people I played this game, because I was tired of dealing with the inevitable 'Oh isn't that the game with a bunch of dudes cybering as catgirls' responses.

Also can I just say, Snorky simply spoke of venues which could be anything per definition. Why did you jump immediately to "degens"? Is that what you consider most venue goers or something?

Venues that aren't focused on adult content are in the minority, and the people who end up attending them tend to be part of the adult venue scene anyway. Adult venues absolutely dominate the scene, at least here on NA.

[Nebelheim]

Existing in the community. Spending 5 minutes talking to other people. Being an officer in a medium/large Free Companys for many years. I've been administrating communities, running raid teams, and arbitrating disputes between players since Heavensward.


Because I've seen it happen first hand, and even been harassed myself.
I've had to remove people from FFXIV related communities on many occasions for violating peoples boundaries and being extremely disgusting, and without fail they were overwhelmingly people who were deeply involved in the 'Venue' scene and had their super modded characters plastered all over the place. I've never experienced something like this to this extent on any other game, except for maybe PSO2 which also attracts these types of people like a magnet.


Do you know what happens you open this games tag on Twitter? Do you play other multiplayer games and engage with their community? This game has developed an external reputation for being full of degenerate behavior. One of the most notorious articles ever published about this game was about its brothel scene lol. There was a point where I stopped telling people I played this game, because I was tired of dealing with the inevitable 'Oh isn't that the game with a bunch of dudes cybering as catgirls' responses.



Venues that aren't focused on adult content are in the minority, and the people who end up attending them tend to be part of the adult venue scene anyway. Adult venues absolutely dominate the scene, at least here on NA.

I transferred to crystal for a few months because friends convinced me to a few years ago and every venue seemed to be 18+ and had experiences where people were disgusting and went beyond my boundaries no matter how many times i denied wanting to do stuff. There is more erp now then actual story driven rp now and it's so hard to find people that want to do story/character driven rp. It got to the point i told my friends i wanted to go back to primal after bad experiences and blacklisting people who didn't know how to take no for an answer. I had to report someone who would sit outside my house for days and lock my house up because they would invite randoms to erp at my house and nothing happened to them.

[Xeronia]

I have had similar experiences as littleimp after checking out venues out of curiosity and had dealt with stalkers and people getting really weird and not leave me alone to the point where i had to blacklist and report people. I might have just been unlucky but there are roleplayers that take things way too far and take things beyond your comfort zone even after setting boundaries. A lot of roleplayers are decent and at least keep things behind closed doors but i had experiences of also people trying to force things when i wanted nothing to do with whatever they wanted.

I have noted this here before but I made a viera alt to play with a friend of mine, I did a FATE in East shroud with someone and they started whispering me noticing where the character name was from. Three sentences in they asked me if I ERP and asked if the friend who came to bail me out was my boyfriend a few moments later. I understand this is fully a random incident that happened to me and it could be clouding my judgement on the matter but upon bringing it up in friends groups many also have similar stories, I know that is anecdotal evidence but it certainly changed my view on how much of a lack of moderation there is. Add in all the "Sorry that was supposed to be a whisper!" shouts I have seen in random zone chats of elicit nature and well I would agree it is getting out of hand.

As for the topic at hand I realized as a causal player myself I don't have to group with anyone to get my "Casual BiS of tomestone gear and relic" thanks to Duty Support. I understand the game would need this feature for future proofing but I think it has helped diminish some aspects of the game being an MMO. If I add in how so much new content this expansion simply didn't have a shelf life and in island Sanctuaries case only further isolated the community in private instances I would say this was a terrible expansion for an MMO, it is a fine single player experience I suppose. This is only further worsened by the community mentality itself of if I had wanted to do content as a Primal player I would need to go to Aether, the PF for primal is only a few groups and a ton of venue ads. I don't think I need an apology, I just want to see that next expansion has done anything to address these issue and thus far a few have been hit but several haven't been mentioned at all.

[Nebelheim]

I have noted this here before but I made a viera alt to play with a friend of mine, I did a FATE in East shroud with someone and they started whispering me noticing where the character name was from. Three sentences in they asked me if I ERP and asked if the friend who came to bail me out was my boyfriend a few moments later. I understand this is fully a random incident that happened to me and it could be clouding my judgement on the matter but upon bringing it up in friends groups many also have similar stories, I know that is anecdotal evidence but it certainly changed my view on how much of a lack of moderation there is. Add in all the "Sorry that was supposed to be a whisper!" shouts I have seen in random zone chats of elicit nature and well I would agree it is getting out of hand.

As for the topic at hand I realized as a causal player myself I don't have to group with anyone to get my "Casual BiS of tomestone gear and relic" thanks to Duty Support. I understand the game would need this feature for future proofing but I think it has helped diminish some aspects of the game being an MMO. If I add in how so much new content this expansion simply didn't have a shelf life and in island Sanctuaries case only further isolated the community in private instances I would say this was a terrible expansion for an MMO, it is a fine single player experience I suppose. This is only further worsened by the community mentality itself of if I had wanted to do content as a Primal player I would need to go to Aether, the PF for primal is only a few groups and a ton of venue ads. I don't think I need an apology, I just want to see that next expansion has done anything to address these issue and thus far a few have been hit but several haven't been mentioned at all.

I has similar experiences of people also asking where my characters name was from that lead to them asking if i erp or full blown jump into erp with me. Or i would be just sitting in limsa playing as a viera or highlander thinking what i want to do when i get unwarranted tells. After just a few experiences through a few month period i jumped back to primal.