How it used to be...

[Ayuhra]

There have been bad apples in this game all along.

In Heavensward I got the pet from the Vault and the other dps said "Of course the [censored] Black Mage got it..."

And in Alexander I once had someone call me bad, rail on me for being bad, called in a guildie into the raid (a randomized group) to also call me bad...

"Hey, Gale, I hear you are really bad at this game!"

I died.

"Confirmed!"

This moment is sort of burned into the back of my skull because I took it pretty hard. I'd already been having a bad day for real life reasons.

Which brings me to my point: They've been here all along, maybe you're just noticing them more. Also, in regards to thin skin... I mean, yeah, you shouldn't take things personally but also people need to remember that those other characters on the screen in raids are being controlled by actual human beings somewhere. Being polite is always best.

I empathize with you. Someone suggested to me that one reason for the increase in rude people could be because of all the WoW refugees that are coming over to XIV. They told me that WoW's community isn't exactly known for being the nicest.

As a WoW refugee myself I can say that WoW is not as over the top toxic as people make it out to be. In my experience I've run into harsher but less frequent toxicity here (like the above example) while WoW is basically just a stream of trash talking that turns very quickly into white noise.

[Kikoten]

I'm not typically one to make passive-aggressive marks at people, let alone curse someone out if I'm in a foul mood. I've noticed that my first reaction is to bluntly say, "We gotta do this, this, and this," if I feel someone isn't doing the mechanics. It's when someone makes the first mark at me that I play their game and bark back at them.

Is that the best solution? Not really. But sometimes it feels good.

Edit: Sometimes I fail at inflection. Recently, someone told me, "Dancer, you need to be aoeing groups." They had a point, but I was kind of irritated at the time, so I sarcastically said, "Anything else I should be doing?" Of course, it didn't come off that way -- it came off to them that I was genuinely seeking information on how to better my own contribution to the run. I guess that's one instance where I failed at snapping at someone.