Things to think about before you call someone "Bad"

[Dirwen]

Honestly not trying to be hypocritical, but try to understand the frustration when a current player builds up a game to have the exact opposite type of community as your average Raid or die MMO to a new player, then before the new person even hits 35, they get slammed and vote kicked multiple times (which unless someone is afk or being harassing is against the rules) for not knowing every single aspect of a fight and even told the group they are new.

A person who could have ended up being a decent player logs out and logs back into the other MMO she was playing because the devil you know is sometimes better than the devil you don't.

But before they leave they point out the 1700 post thread on this forum where the vets are literally slamming all the "bads" they have to endure.

And no it wasn't really like that a couple years back. I'm not saying that anyone on this thread is guilty of that, but it is happening and in every MMo I have played that adopts this attitude, a reduced player base isn't far behind.

That's my two cents on it.

I partially agree with your statement. I'm a new player that started around two months ago so everything is new and fresh for me. However, for most others it's old news and just boring content to them. The first two weeks I played got kicked multiple times or people just leaving because I was confused what I was suppose to do in a dungeon.

Good thing I started out as DPS but I can't imagine what new players that started out as tank/healer have to put with. I did the MSQ up to level 30 and was bored of the story and all the running around didn't help so did story skip and spent most of my time exping in dungeons to max level.

[Vahlnir]

Speaking as someone who quit WoW after ten years, I'm not disagreeing with you, but the toxicity of the community there was a contributing factor to why I quit. My main reason was of course, as you say, the rift between the players and the company. But I'd be lying if I said that FFXIV's much calmer community wasn't a welcome change and surprise that made it easier to leave WoW behind.

Before I quit WoW I stepped down from hardcore raiding and played casually, and the toxicity I encountered in lvling content was sometimes awful. I got harassed in a lvl 60 dungeon because I was playing a dwarf warlock. They laughed at me because I was supposedly a noob for not playing as a human or gnome. And no they didn't stop when I explained it was only an alt to have a bit of fun. I saw a tank get mocked for being bad simply because he didn't want to chain pull while the healer was afk. A dps pulled, it caused a wipe and they blamed it on the tank for not reacting fast enough. I could go on like this for a while. Of course not every dungeon was as dramatic as this but it wasn't a rare occurrence to see some completely needless and downright mean comments in casual content. Never mind all the stuff I saw as a hardcore raider.

These experiences with toxicity didn't make me quit WoW, but my god they made it easier to.

A toxic atmosphere doesn't help, can't really deny that. I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I will never really quit WoW, but this is probably one of the first times that I've simply unsubbed without much thought. So here I am, resubbed to FF XIV and I'm a happy camper...with a few gripes, but no game is perfect.

[van_arn]

The opposite is also true. I have seen in many threads a lot of people acting as if it's perfectly acceptable to instantly kick people for daring to be only average in non-savage content. A lot of opinions regarding player performance are quite extreme on both ends. This is why the debates tend to get very heated.

If they have the votes, that's the party's decision. Perfectly fine, inevitable, and with enough finality there's no counter once it's gone through.

It only persists on the forums because couldashouda lives here. Ingame, the vote itself is final.

[gamepob]

If they're in any dungeon and need the hall of the novice, it's already too late. They had to skip or not pay attention to the lessons in the hall of the novice to enter sastasha.

Kick.

A new player starts the game. After few hours of MSQ and class quests they get Sastasha at lvl 15. "Oh, great. A dungeon where I can see how groups work!" ... 5 mins into the dungeon ... "Hey newbie, did you finish hall of novice?" ... "What is that?" I just followed my quests" ... "It's already too late for you" ... kick.
Is this how you envision player's first interaction with groups to go?

I was lvl 30 (class) and I was trying to find information on how to become Ninja, when I realised I missed this thing called "Hall of novice". And even after doing those first few instances, I knew little more about group cohesion. Why? Because those first few teach you nothing but how fast everything dies. You true group test comes by doing Sastasha, Tam Tara and Copperbell. You know, the "levelling" dungeons.

Is it my fault for missing "hall of novice"? Of course it is? But I am a novice and as such I am expected to make mistakes, especially in a game with so many different game systems and such a fast levelling pace your head is spinning while trying to decide what to do in what order so you don't lose XP, gear or whatever else there is in a form of rewards. Your head is filled with all these bizarre names, places and systems and you are just trying to learn by doing. And dungeons 1-50 (levelling dungeons) are the best way to do that. No amount of reading or watching guides and manuals can replace that.

So, while we can all agree it's neither fair nor helpful for a newbie or uneducated to enter end game group content without learning more about that content and expectations that are tied to it, we can also agree learning dungeons are off limits to end-game players who have no desire or capabilities to help new players finish those dungeons without expecting them to play on a level they (end game player) believe is right. They are learning.

So, if you are an end game player with high expectations, please, don't enter a levelling dungeon as your competence for basic human interaction is not high enough. Stick to the content where players are more or less equal.

[OurMom]

before the new person even hits 35, they get slammed and vote kicked multiple times

Shouldn't they stop and evaluate themselves? If they don't is that really any one else's fault but their own? If a person that's constantly getting kicked can't rub two brain cells together to figure out they're at fault then that's on them.

every MMo I have played that adopts this attitude, a reduced player base isn't far behind.

Every mmo I've played where people can call out bads which is, according to here, "toxic", still has a healthy population, except for Archeage. But Trion killed Archeage, not the "toxic" playerbase.

[Fynlar]

Ran into a 50 RDM in Pharos Sirius today, not level synced, so it was clear they were new. They did absolutely nothing but run in and use Riposte over and over.


Normally I'd be understanding of such a person being new (RDM flummoxed me at first too) and I tried to tell them that it was primarily a caster class, and to use their spells, starting out with Jolt. Absolutely no response, continued spamming Riposte. This is what happens the vast majority of the time I try to give advice regarding combat rotations to someone in the DF, for that matter, to the point where I honestly wondered why I was even bothering here.



This carried on up until before the 2nd boss, then they got the boot.


It's one thing to be "bad", it's another to be completely non-receptive to changing that, and by the time you've hit level 50 and cleared 2.0 there is no excuse anymore. If you're THAT clueless as to what you're doing with a new class, learn it on a training dummy before you go gimping a DF group, please.

[Vahlnir]

Ran into a 50 RDM in Pharos Sirius today, not level synced, so it was clear they were new. They did absolutely nothing but run in and use Riposte over and over.


Normally I'd be understanding of such a person being new (RDM flummoxed me at first too) and I tried to tell them that it was primarily a caster class, and to use their spells, starting out with Jolt. Absolutely no response, continued spamming Riposte. This is what happens the vast majority of the time I try to give advice regarding combat rotations to someone in the DF, for that matter, to the point where I honestly wondered why I was even bothering here.



This carried on up until before the 2nd boss, then they got the boot.


It's one thing to be "bad", it's another to be completely non-receptive to changing that, and by the time you've hit level 50 and cleared 2.0 there is no excuse anymore. If you're THAT clueless as to what you're doing with a new class, learn it on a training dummy before you go gimping a DF group, please.

People are either overly sensitive sometimes or they simply don't care. Heck, I got snark earlier in Leveling roulette just by asking the melee in the group to LB a boss. Mainly because I was a Mentor (they seemed to harbor some hatred towards Mentors). After that I'll probably just help those who ask for it from now on.

[Fynlar]

I actually very rarely have run into the vocal "it's MY $12.95" crowd. The vast, vast majority of the time, I just get 100% dead silence + them continuing to do whatever boneheaded thing they were doing. I'm pretty sure most of the time they aren't even seeing my words in the chat, whether it's because their chat window isn't set properly or they just aren't looking.

[van_arn]

A new player starts the game. After few hours of MSQ and class quests they get Sastasha at lvl 15. "Oh, great. A dungeon where I can see how groups work!" ... 5 mins into the dungeon ... "Hey newbie, did you finish hall of novice?" ... "What is that?" I just followed my quests" ... "It's already too late for you" ... kick.
Is this how you envision player's first interaction with groups to go?

I was lvl 30 (class) and I was trying to find information on how to become Ninja, when I realised I missed this thing called "Hall of novice". And even after doing those first few instances, I knew little more about group cohesion. Why? Because those first few teach you nothing but how fast everything dies. You true group test comes by doing Sastasha, Tam Tara and Copperbell. You know, the "levelling" dungeons.

Is it my fault for missing "hall of novice"? Of course it is? But I am a novice and as such I am expected to make mistakes, especially in a game with so many different game systems and such a fast levelling pace your head is spinning while trying to decide what to do in what order so you don't lose XP, gear or whatever else there is in a form of rewards. Your head is filled with all these bizarre names, places and systems and you are just trying to learn by doing. And dungeons 1-50 (levelling dungeons) are the best way to do that. No amount of reading or watching guides and manuals can replace that.

So, while we can all agree it's neither fair nor helpful for a newbie or uneducated to enter end game group content without learning more about that content and expectations that are tied to it, we can also agree learning dungeons are off limits to end-game players who have no desire or capabilities to help new players finish those dungeons without expecting them to play on a level they (end game player) believe is right. They are learning.

So, if you are an end game player with high expectations, please, don't enter a levelling dungeon as your competence for basic human interaction is not high enough. Stick to the content where players are more or less equal.

You seem to be reading an awful lot into what I said. Scroll up and you'll see I'm talking about a tank that wasn't using flash AND didn't respond to party messages.

If you won't communicate with your party, bye. Communication is non-negotiable, even for novices.

[Starflake]

If I read the word 'toxic' one more time I feel like I may just throw my computer out. It's such a buzzword these days used for almost every small offence. My God get over yourselves. Stop being a bad player or deal with the consequences of people being pissed off at you for wasting their time. I don't want to spend half an hour in an expert roulette because at 70 my two DPS don't know what it means to aoe. This community sets no high standards on anyone, but most of the time, DF and PF experiences are so bad due to the amount of bad players. It doesn't take much to be a decent player. Read a bit of a guide, practice on a dummy, don't immediately overshoot your ambations. All this talk about toxicity is so ridiculous. I have personally NEVER, after 5 years met someone who is an ass to people for the sake of being an ass. People always had their meltdowns because of just terrible people being terrible players wasting everryone else their time. Stop doing it.