Why is the FF14 Community So Adverse to Banter?

[Len_]

People keep saying "read the room." My question is: Why is the room so prickly? Never online or IRL have I experienced a community as prickly as FF14's.

Maybe the problem is you're not funny.

[BigCheez]

Ask people in this community about WoW, and you will commonly be told that it is a game full of toxic elitists that are rude and cuss everyone out over simple mistakes or nothing at all. If you actually go play WoW though, you will find that to be mostly wrong. What explains the discrepancy? They're not lying, they really were treated horribly in WoW. However it was because of their own incompetence and refusal to improve at the game (see "It's Rude to Be Bad At Warcraft"). Those same people came here having heard that XIV's community was nice and friendly, and turned it into a safe space for not only playing badly, but also a place where you were never allowed to criticize anyone lest the game turn into WoW. Then the ToS change in ShB happened and gave them the cudgel they needed to chase out anyone that didn't comply with their agenda. These sorts of people also tend to be extremely fragile and have poor social skills. Which explains all of the drama.

The unfortunate thing, is that the original community was nice and friendly, but they were not... whatever this "community" has become. It was a bunch of XI, 1.0, and Beta vets for the most part who had a shared culture that was civil, but could take a joke. That culture mostly persisted up through Stormblood. Then, in ShB it changed fast. There had always been loony WoW refugees, but the amount of drama and weird crap just started multiplying exponentially. I don't blame the Shadowlands exodus entirely for this though. That certainly created a small Eternal September episode for the game which we've never really recovered from. However, ShB had been seeing cultural shift even before that happened. SL failing was just gasoline on the fire.

This actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Finding a person adverse to banter and extrapolating that as the whole community is adverse to banter is quite a leap. There are plenty of the game that banter all the time.

It isn't a person, it's a very large part of the community. Anyone who has played the game for a length of time has either encountered these people, or is simply lacking the self-awareness to realise that they are these people. I won't point fingers at specific people for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of them showing themselves right here in this thread.

[chaotix69]

The FFXIV community is mostly people without any social skills to begin with. How they are in game is how they are in life. The game is an escape for them. It’s the same reason that a large population of the community also consumes anime in unhealthy levels, it’s an escape. Just walk around the game and see how many cringy Japanese character names there are.

I don’t want to make it sound like I am generalizing, since I have met so many amazing people in game that love to converse. But let’s call it like it is. If you want good conversation or banter with players, you chose the wrong game.

[MicahZerrshia]

It isn't a person, it's a very large part of the community. Anyone who has played the game for a length of time has either encountered these people, or is simply lacking the self-awareness to realise that they are these people. I won't point fingers at specific people for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of them showing themselves right here in this thread.

someone says something as simple as "I don't like discord" and you get all "omg you self rightous &%$^" yet you sit here wanting to tell the rest of us we have our heads up our rears and have no self awareness about being the problem? Intraspection begins at home, try it sometime lol

[CCheshire]

Typically, they are talking to their friends in FC/LS chat and just not in public in hubs or content with total strangers.

So I've tried talking to others during downtime content, and there's more ppl chatting in OC, NN, or maps, but it's always quiet in dungeons since most ppl want to get tomes then leave ASAP unless something goes terribly wrong there. Also, I know others are chatting on discord too since you don't need to be online to chat with friends who are taking a break before EC, so it's more active than FC chat too.

It's OK to dislike discord but just be aware that's where everyone else is spending time on it.

[JohnLakeside]

Maybe the problem is you're not funny.

My gf thinks I'm funny. That's enough for me!

[Voidmage]

The FFXIV community is mostly people without any social skills to begin with. How they are in game is how they are in life. The game is an escape for them. It’s the same reason that a large population of the community also consumes anime in unhealthy levels, it’s an escape. Just walk around the game and see how many cringy Japanese character names there are.

I don’t want to make it sound like I am generalizing, since I have met so many amazing people in game that love to converse. But let’s call it like it is. If you want good conversation or banter with players, you chose the wrong game.

And yet you are generalising here.
Complaining about people with japanese character names in a japanese game of one of the most japanese game series and with an anime like artstyle and tropes is stupid.

This community is not more or less chatty then others out there, they just use other communication channels nowadays.
If you want to chat with someone they usually reply back, I never had a problem with that and tbh if your attitude is the same ingame in chat as in this post of yours, I also wouldn't want to interact with you.


Even regarding the players who don't want a conversation, I simply accept it.
This is a video game that many play after work given most are probably around 30+ and probably have a family of their own.
Many just want to relax. No one here on this small forum has the right to dictate if that is correct or not.

Last, OP in his initial post frankly sounds like a very young person with those comments.
They aren't really funny for me and I also wouldn't be interested in such banter.

The game has so many different people. Search for like-minded players and accept that other people with other mindsets exist.
It's better than running to the Forum ranting because someone doesn't want to banter in a video game tbh.

[Absurdity]

Maybe the problem is you're not funny.

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.
But I have also seen what the "XIV community" seemingly finds funny and I'd prefer to be the opposite of that.

[Allooutrick]

Maybe I was lucky, maybe it's nostalgia talking, but I feel like this community took a dive starting in Endwalker and got worse with Dawntrail.

[RaionKansen]

Years of toxic positivity and a bunch of mentally ill, anxiety-ridden, weirdos makes it hard to socialize when something can just be taken the wrong way or people can get too sensitive which leads to you getting reported