Are You Enjoying XIV For The Game? Or Are You Enjoying XIV Because Of The People.

[Jessica_VS]

I play with friends and family, and we like the game. However, unlike other MMOs, I have found few new acquaintances here. There are strange people everywhere, but I've found more stable individuals on other games. It's a clichéd stereotype, but it's true enough: this game appeals to the "anime" crowd, and, unfortunately, a handful of people in the anime crowd are pretty weird and/or emotionally disturbed, and that tends to make other players stay quiet and keep to themselves to avoid encountering and/or encouraging bizarre behavior.

(You know the types: spamming multiple-line-long cat pictures in chat throughout a random duty with strangers, having emotional meltdowns for no sane reason whatsoever, harping on about supporting the newest socio-political "thing" to anybody who may listen, etc.)

[sindriiisgaming]

Something that crosses my mind often with many fads now a days, but especially MMOs, are you enjoying this because you like XIV, or are you only here because your friends are here.

Recently a friend of mine stopped playing XIV due to their friend group dissolving, from what I know, their friends had been playing from various points in the MMO, but the majority started back in ARR. They got pulled in around Shadowbringers Release and since then had been having a blast, they are now from what I can tell done with the game now that they have no friend group to play it with.

So how many of you are here simply because your friends are here and got you to play vs playing because you actaully like the game and wanna see it grow and where it goes.

Started with the former, for about a year it was the latter, but i bit the nail and just finally unsubbed. neither are enough for me to keep playing during 6+ months of no content. i feel bad leaving my friends behind.. ill miss them.. but i know that if they really need me im only a discord dm away

[Eastwall]

I like my lala. That's why l play. So A l guess. As l play pvp, l made friends, and l want to play more because of it

[Volgia]

I enjoy being a big lion man, otherwise... *looks at the Wuk Lamat's voice cesspit posts* i'd say I just enjoy the game.

[Mistress_Irika]

Definitely for the people. With strangers, it's a love-hate relationship when it comes to how the game is played. That's just part of the adventure. With friends, it's the group saying "whoops. we stayed up too late" and enjoying other shenanigans lol.

The game has been simplified to the point where I avoid roulettes if I'm able to. I may tolerate it if I'm with friends that won't let me skip it for the day. Without them, I would have already been gone. The game's story does leave a lasting impression depending on the expansion that you prefer, but it does not compared to doing it with another. That's just me though. Some were built to completely solo things without a care in the world. I'm not one of them despite mainly playing solo queue.

[Wyssahtyn]

game and general community are both bad.

[Avoidy]

I play with an insular group. Anytime I interact with people outside of it, 95% of the time it makes me wish I were playing with a better community, in a better game, with better GMs and a better ToS. If my small friend group quit, I'd leave too. In a heartbeat.

People in this community are either super quiet and exhibiting NPC behavior (like trusts) or they get super bent out of shape over like, the smallest things, and it's super off-putting. For example, I had a dude in alliance raids the other day go off at everyone because someone pulled while another player was in a cutscene. Nobody actually said "wait, we have cs" or anything. We sorta pulled up, waited a few seconds, and then a tank just pulled. Anyway, that was enough for some other dude to get really mad on some sprout's behalf and just complain for the entire fight while threatening to report the tank who pulled. And it's like... bruh, even the sprout doesn't care this much. But that's how people are here. I see it ... not often, tbh, but when I do see it it just reminds me why I play with friends and try to avoid randoms/roulettes.

Post-EW content's staying power was kind of a joke for me. I was tired of it all after like the first week at best. I used to queue up for the older content that I found enjoyable, but there're only so many times you can do the same thing over and over again before you're just tired. My friends make this game good for me. And they're so different from the rest of "the great community" that I've encountered, that I hesitate to even give the community credit as a whole.

[LilimoLimomo]

For me it's the game, as most of my friends play very rarely.

[hynaku]

I just play the game to pass time. 90% of the time I'm playing alone and not with anyone I know.

[Astrus]

90% the game, 10% the circle that plays the game with me. 0% the community.

These days I try to keep ingame social interactions with strangers to a minimum, the way the community has evolved seems to make interacting with it more trouble than it's worth.

Having someone blow up in a dungeon and (allegedly) reporting me for greeting the party by typing "o/" which according to them is "clearly" the Nazi salute as my character name is German once is enough for me, I'm not going to try and navigate that minefield. Nothing came of that incident, of course but I'm not going to risk running into one of those professionally offended people and having some perceived slight stick.
In a way, the community really makes me appreciate the game turning more and more into a singleplayer experience with optional multiplayer.

Sometimes I wonder when that shift in the community happened, thinking back to the welcoming if sometimes weird community I encountered in ARR and HW it's like night and day.