Stop being so hostile in the game

[Chiramu]

Every French person I met in my data center always did terrible things like healer with gatherer gear, PLD who didn't use flash, or anything. only one of my entire DF did normal things.

I had a (French client)level 50 Arcanist with Topaz Carbuncle out in a Brayflox Hard(got it for the roulette). Just noped right out of that one. Such a high level Arcanist in duty with a Topaz out, you know they are not going to play properly.

[Hrimfaxi]

Went to Halatali hard mode with a tank, 2 dragoons (me being one) and a healer. Tank accidentally pulled too many adds and we quickly tried to wipe as fast as possible to prevent the tank from dying. Nobody died from that big pull of adds and that was just the start of the dungeon only. Healer got mad. The tank pulls another one small set of adds before the first boss and he understands his mistake. Healer stopped healing everyone cus he wasn't happy and everyone died. The tank apologised for his mistake and left the party. I scolded the healer before i left as well. He wanna be angry fine. That is not how you suppose to play. You don't like it than leave. That player could be a new tank or he forgotten the equipments are all capped. Really disappointed at the healer childish tantrum.

[Alistaire]

Prejudice would be meeting a French player and assuming they'll be rude.

Finding out that a rude/bad player happened to be French is not; it's understanding that there's a certain culture and a fairly large proportion fit the stereotype.

[Evaddaragon]

snip

I'm not exactly sure why you quoted me on that one. I'm talking about ticking something, and you were talking about ticking it... off.

As I said, I was under the impression that selecting a language didn't actually mean you had to be fluent, but willing to cooperate with players of that language. I mean, that IS what the auto-translate feature is for, right?

That being said, though, I play on a NA data center and am fluent in both French and English. If I'd bump into a Japanese-only (let alone German) player, I'd be quite surprised as it actually never happened in the past 3 years. ^^

[Sakuraluna]

Snip

What I meant is that if you can't or don't intend to speak a language, it is rude to tick it in the first place because you're creating a needless language barrier for others who tick it expecting to be grouped with players they can communicate with. If you're fluent in the languages and intend to use them if need be, that's fine, but the dev team didn't frivolously include this system as a way for players to say that they don't mind being paired with, say, Japanese players, they put it in place so Japanese players (or English, French or German speaking players, etc.) can choose to be paired with only those who they can communicate with. I'm sure you could rely on auto translate for some things, but I'd imagine it's not that effective for explaining mechanics or strategies if necessary.

[FinaSel]

If you want to play with less hostile folks, I would highly recommend learning basic Japanese and playing on a Japanese server.
Even if you don't speak it well, it seems like most people will try to switch to English to explain something to you, instead of becoming angry.
I had someone tell me about 制限削除. I understand what it means (Removing restrictions), but I didn't know what the English equivalent was in the game (Undersized Party). Pretty different, right?

Because I didn't know about that option, he tried really hard in poor English to explain it me. I was really grateful, but in the end I had to Google it because I didn't know an undersized party option even existed.

I have never seen a Japanese player being aggressively hostile to another player in any party (yet). (But I have seen an annoyed healer stop healing once, without saying anything).

The most hostile thing I've ever seen a Japanese player say, was when they called the members of an opposing Grand Company idiots during PvP (even though they can't see it).

Now, English players I've been with are a totally different story! I've been in a few groups with English players who are downright mean, cruel bullies who swear and flip out at the slightest mistake of another player.

[Frederick22]

[Skorp_X]

For those saying to not tick english if you don't speak english, I have to say that you can wait up to an hour to do a simple dungeon if you only ticked french. They do it to be able to actually play the game.

A friend of mine started playing at my recommendation and was constantly complaining about hour long DPS queues and I didn't understand because it has rarely been longer than 15 minutes for me. Then I made him tick english and it solved his problem.

Also, that friend's english is not really good. I see him try to chat in the FC chat and it's painful. So I can understand him being reluctant to speak in english with people he doesn't know.

[Radacci]

I dunno, I've played many MMOs, and FFXIV has been one of my worst experiences community wise.

I don't think such strict server restrictions to only allowing cross server communication in performance heavy content helps things. I have personal guesses about other reasons, but I won't mention those here.

trust me, there's much worse ^^
but FF community seems to be at the top when it comes to entitlement, and feeling offended about anything. as well as rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, and hostility towards new ideas. I played Tera for a while, and i was ahead of the wave - was among the first to hit lv cap - as a result, there was hardly anyone to do any content with, so i went back to earlier hubs, where there was more people...and holy crap...the chat channel there...
It was like jersey shore, but with sociopath kids who are competing over who can be the biggest douche. I just turned off the chat, and went back to high lv areas, then quit the game shortly after. It was a bit surprising, cause it was P2P at the time.
But basically how it goes: the more players there are, the more bold the douchbags, get - they are still there in small communities, but they would easily be singled out and blocked - while in heavy populations, they become just a little pebble in an avalanche of idiocy.

[Serilda]

Also, that friend's english is not really good. I see him try to chat in the FC chat and it's painful. So I can understand him being reluctant to speak in english with people he doesn't know.

If he's willing to try and communicate in English I think it's fine even if his skills aren't so good. On my server we have an issue with non-Japanese-speakers who refuse to listen or communicate with their DF groups at all even though they flagged Japanese (since we're profiling, they're always English speakers; the French speakers I've met have all flagged themselves properly and been very sweet). These non-communicators are universally terrible. But just making the effort with some auto translate and a few clumsy words can make a huge difference, and most groups will try their best to form an understanding across the language barrier. I personally dislike people who flag languages they won't even try to speak as it means everyone playing properly in their second language will experience more prejudice as a result - that's my opinion as a minority in my datacentre rather than the dominant group who only want to speak in Japanese. I also hate completely silent runs as they're boring. Being able to chat with my party members and encourage one another makes everything flow better.

Incidentally, I believe there are two different sets of language preferences which is where the confusion is arising in some posts. The language flags in your search profile are configured in your settings, and denote the languages you are comfortable speaking. The language flags in DF are only used for matchmaking in DF, and they denote the languages you wish to play with for that particular activity. This is, of course, needlessly confusing, but I definitely only flag J for DF yet I know my search profile has me correctly flagged with all of my languages. I've been in parties where someone is listed as E-only but the JP players are asking one another how they got matched when they only flagged J because they hate not being able to talk to their group. The reason is that the E player flagged J too despite being unable/unwilling to communicate in that language. Niwashi's suggestion would definitely make it less confusing, though it might lead to (probably deserved) witch hunts when people outright lie and draw attention to it by refusing to communicate.

While we're sharing tales of passive aggressive Japanese hostility, I've never seen it where it wasn't justified but the funniest incidents are always in FL. Someone accidentally said the Japanese equivalent of 'good game' once halfway through a match by fumbling their chat box and the harassment kick message was almost instantaneous since they were perceived to be lowering morale and whining, lol (I voted for them to stay as they were cohealing with me and doing a great job). Another time I had to report an English speaker for opening a FL match with a sexist slur because he presumed nobody could understand him on my datacentre (sucks to be him). Most negative experiences usually involve lots of attempting to reason with the bad player in multiple langauges and discussion with the other Japanese-speaking group members before any action is taken, though. The glimpses of drama on English-majority servers are something else.