The bottom line is that when you are playing a game with other people (like FFXIV), you are actually playing with other people. Everyone has a different kind of skill set, certain amount of experience, etc which might not be similar to your own.

However, since you group up to tackle different kinds of content, you are asked to work together as a Team in order to complete the said task, like for instance clearing a Dungeon. When you are working as a Team, you should look out for each other so that everyone crosses the finish line together.

I read a lot of things like:
  • If you don’t keep up, you suck
  • Healer: If you don’t wait for me (to finish my buffs), i’ll let you die
  • Healer: If you don’t pull less, i’ll let you die
  • Tank: If you pull ahead of me, i won’t take the monster off you (and let you die)
  • Tank: I keep pulling multiple packs. If you can’t keep me alive, you suck
  • Healer/DPS: If you don’t pull more, i’ll pull more for you
  • If you don’t switch to DPS stance (referring to Tank and Healer), you suck
  • Etc

All of these comments display the wrong kind of attitude when you are playing with other people as a team. It doesn’t really matter if someone is faster than you or even not as fast as you. If they are as skilled as you or not as skilled as you.

Most of the comments i read are rather “self centered” and lack team spirit. Even if only 1 person can’t keep up with the rest of the group, that single person is just as valuable to the team then the rest.

To give you an example. I was in a Battle of the Big Keep battle as a healer (WHM) where my co healer just stood there, doing nothing. I stepped up my game in order to ensure that the party didn’t wipe the trial. I even went as far as keeping my co healer alive, just in case he would decide to jump into the fray and help out. Who knows, he might’ve went to the toilet while we were fighting.

Unfortunately, not every member of the party was alive at the end of the trial and i had to raise a few people along the way. A dps mentioned “So, [name] got a free ride huh?”. I said “Yes” and apologized to the people who died under my watch. They cheered me on as they left the duty. No drama was given and it felt good that we did manage to finish it without a wipe. What more can we ask for?

Another example was a Nidhogg story trial where a DRK tank did all the wrong things. Face the monsters towards group and picking up the wrong add during the add phase. People got fed up after 2 wipes and left. So, before i left, i explained what he should do during that phase and that’s when he said that he was new to the trial. When i scrolled the chat back up, i noticed that i totally missed the “New adventurer bonus” message and no one tried to explain the trial during our attempts. So, i decided to stick around more and talk him through the entire encounter. He thanked me for the information and the both of us left.

As a member of a team, you are expected to do your job to the best of your abilities. Some people work better under pressure and improve faster when placed in stressful situations, but not everyone will be able to. There are plenty of people who will panic in situations like that, or simply won’t be able to function properly.

That doesn’t necessarily make them a bad player. They might need more time and less stressful situations in order to “blossom”. They may even need a guiding hand in order to teach them things they didn’t manage to figure out themselves.

Which brings us to the next point. When reading comments on the forums, it’s pretty plain to see that we (as in the general populous) are unable to properly communicate with each other. We call each other “trolls”, slap each other in the face with insult, aren’t open to suggestions or even in some cases able to properly phrase a suggestion so that it won't “feel” like it’s “forced upon them”. We take offense to almost anything, take things personal and react rudely to things that don’t go the way we want them to go. We don’t have any patience and insult people/kick players/vote abandon at the first sign of mistakes or even a wipe.



It seems that it’s hard to find a sense of (team) effort, camaraderie, community, support and most of all fun in the things we do as a group. Apparently we don’t see games as a form of relaxation anymore, but a competition or a job.

Perhaps it’s time for us as players to take a good look at ourselves and wonder how we got to this point and how we (as human beings) can change that.

I mean, taking things down a notch to ensure that the entire group makes it through the duty will feel a lot better then rushing towards the end and be frustrated about the amount of damage the group does or the amount of deaths/wipes we faced during the said duty. If you see someone struggle, why throw insults? Why not talk about it and try to help instead?

Sure, not everyone listens. There are bad apples in every community, but for every bad apple there are a hell of a lot more apples that make a pretty damn fine juice when mixed together. Aren’t we all thirsty and crave for such a juice?

Just, don’t go fight fire with fire. You’ll only going to get yourself burned in the process.