How it used to be...

[Hawklaser]

The funny thing is, across all MMOs I have played over the years, the trend of an increasingly deteriorating community always tended to really kick off after the introduction of cross server dungeon finders.

I suspect the reason for that is slowly over time it becomes more about cranking the loot treeadmill to 11 instead of maintaining the kind of connections that are really needed for the long term survival of the community. As the cross server dungeon finders reduced the reliance on your fellow server mates for getting things done, and thereby also making it so one didn't have to worry about their own reputation.

[Krotoan]

Post expansion content rush. This is why I usually put off doing "current" raid content. ... couldn't help it this time I needed to know what happened!

[White_Wolf_X]

Could be a lot worse, look at WoW.
Sadly is just something every one have to deal with and when it happens report them.

[Mholito]

I feel a lot of it lies in expectations. When you are brand new to the game, it makes sense why you would make mistakes, since you haven't had time to get used to how the game works. But by the time you've hit level 80, you are expected to be used to the basics. The occasional mistake will still happen, but you shouldn't die to the same mechanic over and over again. When you die, you are expected to try working out what killed you. Learn to pay attention to what the boss is doing. Not only to help you do better agains that particular boss, but also to have an easier time learning the mechanics of future bosses. If you struggle with figuring out a mechanic, do not be afraid to ask!

[SaberMaxwell]

This argument is really, really starting to get tiresome.

No, WoW wasn't the nicest game around. Pinning the blame solely on 'WoW refugees' is a bit of a pisstake though, considering that literally every form of online game will have some form of toxicity in it.

XIV is a game, online, at the height of the internet era. It's going to have assholes in it. You were just lucky enough to had avoided them for so long, OP.

I agree, blaming "WoW refugees" for all the bad apples is feeling like a bad meme now. I mean that both in the internet definition and the real/metal gear definition.

Look at the df thread, its existed since 2015. XIV's community wasn't some super happy hippie community "until the WoW refugees attacked"--by and large it hasn't changed much at all.

People are people. It sucks, and we all hate it, but this is the box we're stuck in.

[Beelhi]

FFXIV has always had toxic people. Blaming WoW refugees is nothing but a scapegoat. New expansion = more people (just look at the starter citites, they're filled with new players on both new servers and old) = more risk of running into toxic people.

I'm usually very patient with people in lvl 50 content or if it't their first time running a dungeon/trial/raid. But I also expect a lvl 76 BLM to AOE and not try and kill 10 mobs with single target rotation. If I feel like it I give a friendly suggestion, add a smileyface so it doesn't come off as rude, but if you're gonna trashtalk me for that I will kick you. Now I don't expect people do do a "first week savage clear maximum DPS rotation" in a leveling dungeon but i swear sometimes it feels like people just leave skills the way they get added from obtaining them on their hotbar and press random buttons. People have the right to not want to play with those people.

[MrKusakabe]

It's the current age of gaming and shift in gaming culture and to a big extend the current state of media cunsumption in general



I know I sound like some very old person now, even though I am not that many generations afar from the average gamer (I am born in 1990), but I never caught up on several hypes of the past decade and now I can basically watch the madness going on from the outside:


* Smartphones
* Too much media consumption
* Too much media input
* Mobile gaming devalueing quality
= People forget they have lots of sparetime



What do I mean? I am 28 years old, and basically "everybody" in my age has a cellphone. I have none. I have a landline, and I don't pick it up when I am not in the mood What comes with the cellphone? Apps. What comes with apps? Media consumption. Too much and everywhere.


People do not have "less time" or it being "more stressfull" than in 2005 or 2013, when ARR launched. Cellphones and mass media consumption just spun up the world to a higher speed, and people think they need to keep going with that for some reason. At the staff break room at work - I work as department manager in retail - I see 80% on their phones, two of them using every of their 30 minutes to make mindless and unnecessary phone calls about random shit they could tell each other in a calm manner at the dinner table after work. The other people scrolling mindlessly trough pages of pages of Facebook content, handing out useless likes here and there and get angry and depressed when their "friends" count, "like" count or "follower" count does not raise. Or when person X posts photos of a vacation a person can not afford. A ringing phone in the bus makes at least 10 people go wild, their heads franticly seeking where the ringtone is coming from. My posts on this forum for example are comparably long, and usually I get a "TL;DR" request because, you know, fast fast fast! Reading two paragraphs is already too much for generation Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and even SMS. In the evening they can't sleep, and over the daytime they intoxicate themselves with MONSTER and REDBULL instead of letting their body regernation cells. And then they wonder why they feel sick, depressed, stressed...



So, let me close the circle now:

When playing FFXIV, I heard people play "with one hand on the phone", "watching Netflix", having actual phone conversations. All at once! What are these phone conversations? Mindless bullshit. Let's be frankly there. People do this game too fast, drinking toxic softdrinks (Red Bull etc). instead of actually enjoying the game. I have time for people. I have time for chat. I have time for failure, and wipes. I have no distraction, my mind is focussed, I do not get sweaty hands and press F5 on every stupid social media pages inbetween loading screens. This culture right now of dashing trough everything is the same anger, hate, vile behaviuor people do at sales in a department store. Why this rush though? I can't remember your average workday going from 8 hours to 15. It is still 8 hours. But the culture, the community right now, exposes themselves to so much home entertainment that they, ironically, lost the ability to enjoy being entertained. To do things slowly.



It is so hard to put in words what I mean. The shift in people's time management. But so, so many players don't take this leisure time activity as what it is: LEISURE TIME ACTIVITY. They water their plants here more than their actual plants in real life. As if this a chore, a job. "I need to train my Chocobo, else..." Yeah, what else? What happens if you don't do a dungeon in 24 minutes, but 25:50? 1:50 minutes less for useless Facebook?


I have no tinfoil hat. I do use computers a lot. I have a Surface [Tablet], and I consume lots of media. But focussed. Hence why my posts are usually longer, and I put no "TL;DR" after a 2-paragraph posts.



But when I do, I have no TV running, no phone conversations and my capacities are there to talk to, to help and do dungeons with all the consequences. I do my own judgements if someone is slacking or trying, and I have no problems standing in for a person. I decline almost all votekicks just because some tank on RedBull pulled too much for a newbie (lower iLevel) healer and then the tank got mad.



And as "blunt German with no humour", I am far of being sensitive or a snowflake either...



EDIT: Just found that. Perfect example.

ps: i could write and talk more about this topic, but no one likes reading a wall of text or an essay.

Yes, I do like reading your opinion and thoughts to the fullest and not a crippled version. This is why I am here, on the forums. You are here, start to express your thoughts and feelings just to basically stop and cancel it. You even say you have more to say, more insights. I'd like to hear them, but you would not because......oh yeah, forum speedrunning!!
What is the rush again? Is reading trough a bunch of forum posts already giving someone a mental breakdown so we have to shorten it down? What super life threatening things would happen if it takes 25 seconds longer to appreciate your post? Don't worry, they can watch Netflix at 1.25 speed now if they think they could miss something........





Sincerely,

[Maneesha]

post..

I appreciate that you take your time and read through longer post and also encouraging others to take their take to write longer texts or expressing themselves.

For me its not only the part of writing longer texts and taking more time, its true i dislike receiving a "tl;dr" which then feels like i wasted my time expressing my thoughts/opinion, but also i try not to "ramble" and try to stay on topic, not saying you did any of those (just to be clear). Yes i could have gone into more detail about some stuff, but decided not to in fear of going off-topic and giving the impression of rambling. Some of those would have included the change in perception regarding gaming. It was always seen as something for the younger folks and had, and still has to a certain degree, the stigmata of being for people without work or real life, the nerds and so on. Since gaming is not anymore a niche thing to do, but more mainstream, it brings also more people to it,which can also mean more "bad apples", also a lot of those not having much time due to real life obligations and responsibilities, but still wanting to progress and reach the same "highs" as those who actually have more time and invest much more to pursue their in-game goal or fame.

Of course developers/publishers would actually want to satisfy them, especially if those people are also the ones holding more "buyers" power then a school kid or a student.So games become more "casual", which is good and bad, like everything and depend on the point of view. Remember when everyone knew mmorpgs are a huge time investment and you simply could not play them for an hour or two and expect any real progression, when people were aware they will have to invest hundreds if not thousands of hours to only reach the max level and that this was only a small portion of the game? Yes gone are those days, simply because the targeted audience and the costs to develop and expected profits for a game have gone way up, at least the "AAA" quality stuff, indies are a different topic, but since i rarely play any of those i have no opinion on those.

Another reason why i try to not write long texts is simply because english is a foreign language for me and i am not very confident in my proficiency in it, it takes a long time to write a text with whom i am satisfied and think i expressed my self clearly.


PS:I share a lot of your views regarding social media, the "lack of time" people always express and so on.

[seraphmage]

It's the current age of gaming and shift in gaming culture and to a big extend the current state of media cunsumption in general
...

You are my hero. Thank you for this post.

[Leathium]

I really wish we had some report option to report toxicity and to let SE deal with it, but as of now there are none, all you can do is either blacklist them and hope they get the duty done or just quit, I seen some people being truly toxic in Titania Extreme for example, for the smallest mistakes that are possible to happen and they kept blaming each other for it, even though the kill was clean without enrage, but yeah people just wanted to be upset and pestered regardless, all I really want is an option to report people messages/insults/toxicity and they get dealt with by support or whatever with a warning or chat ban or something, and this mostly happens in higher level duties, most of the low level duties are filled with truly nice people.