Tactful ways to inform people that they're playing badly?

[Vahlnir]

So all I'm hearing from this thread is "you aren't skilled enough to play ffxiv, so just don't play the game and waste our time."

ffxiv has become very toxic in the last few years.....

If that is all you are hearing then you aren't reading much of the thread at all.

[Goji1639]

I think/hope you all know how to speak politely in general. Beyond that just try to offer specific advice on how they can improve. "You're not playing well; try to fix that" will always come off as insulting; while specific advice regarding gear or rotation will come off as you trying to be helpful.

Still, where you "polite" critics tend to fall apart is if someone isn't receptive of you. If someone doesn't want your advice that's not the green light to get aggressive and try to force it on them. Either let it go or, if the run is becoming untenable because of the player who can't/won't adjust, initiate a vote kick and see how the rest of the group feels.

[Arete-Nomos]

Don't bother trying to instruct people. People can report literally anything that makes them upset as "griefing" and it can get you banned.

And SE follows through with it. A friend of mine was sent to GM gaol for saying "You know you don't need to bait Freecure anymore; your mana hasn't gone below 50% this whole dungeon." This was after dying to a pull where the WHM was only using Cure 1. The jerk proceeds to spam Cure 2 on him until out of mana, make some snide remark, and reported him afterwards. The only other thing my friend said the whole dungeon was /cheer to the WHM upon duty completion.

So yeah, the rules are BS and reports are based on whim.

[Noitems]

So all I'm hearing from this thread is "you aren't skilled enough to play ffxiv, so just don't play the game and waste our time."

ffxiv has become very toxic in the last few years.....

To grab a quote from this thread which sums it up very well

We aren't talking about about people who are fat fingering, or learning new skills here. We are talking about people who are actively not trying to learn, and scolding people for handing them advice to improve.

People can make mistakes, it's totally fine. The majority here isn't gonna rag on you for learning a new job as long as you're willing to learn and improve. They're ragging on those who choose to ignore the advice, and use a "you don't pay my sub" level of excuse as a defense. Even a simple "Thank you, I'll keep it in mind." is totally fine for most people to avoid a backlash.

[Zeonx]

That's great but usually people think they are good try to blame the person who is last alive in the party and they say they are holding them back which isn't the case its a excuse.

Examples would be.

your DPS is too low
you don't dodge
you are under geared
you don't stack fast enough

Funny thing is its the blame game and I have seen it a lot.

This is why I don't I said what I said.

For example let me give you an idea what I mean, there was a party I was in and of course I wasn't messing up but they were all fighting, so I stood back while they argued in the fight about who is dodging what and why are they dying so they had a group of friends as group I meant 2 out of the bunch and arguing with few others.

first match the guy blames someone for not doing the fight correctly and that he died near the end, then next thing you know it the guy who blamed the guy dies and still blames the guy even after he dodged the mechanic he was yelling about.
then friends double team yelling at guy next match both the 2 die then party starts falling apart then they calm down try to talk about it and fail again at this point its over.

the moral of the story is people think they are good aren't so good either and they sit here and they explain oh I am good at this fight I beat it millions of times but die more than a guy who just entered the fight then elitist comment would be your dps is too low or I would of won or I wouldn't of died, typical response to someone who doesn't want to admit he is just as bad.

Even if you explain something sometimes it doesn't work out its best to let them learn the fight the more you yell at them the more people get frustrated and mess up more and there goes the fight its disbanded cause you know and I know it never works out very well when someone else tells someone how to do their job because it ends up in a brawl.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

So all I'm hearing from this thread is "you aren't skilled enough to play ffxiv, so just don't play the game and waste our time."

ffxiv has become very toxic in the last few years.....

There is a very big difference between "I noticed you aren't using (Skill), which would aid you in dealing more damage." and "u suk, lmao, uninstall the game".

[Dogempire]

So all I'm hearing from this thread is "you aren't skilled enough to play ffxiv, so just don't play the game and waste our time."

ffxiv has become very toxic in the last few years.....

Pretty sure nobody wants a person who's so bad simply having them in the party makes the run take 15 minutes longer than if they were replaced with an average player.

I really don't see what's so bad about wanting a basic level of competence, especially in a game as easy as this one.

[Kaedan]

So all I'm hearing from this thread is "you aren't skilled enough to play ffxiv, so just don't play the game and waste our time."

ffxiv has become very toxic in the last few years.....

You should get your ears checked then (or your eyes in this case, being a forum).

In all the pages of this thread, I'm 99% positive that literally no one said anything like what you have concluded. There might have been a few obvious sarcasm poss of "uninstall", but no serious post has come anywhere near your terrible interpretation. In fact most posts have either said, "don't say anything at all" or "say something without being condescending"

[Yunuen]

Most of the time I just ignore it and put up with it. I've had a lot of instances of people using single-target skills when it'd be more effective to use AoEs, but I just deal. That being said, I really appreciated when someone told me I was doing my BLM rotation wrong when I started playing. They weren't rude about it, just like "Hey, it's better if you do this for your rotation".

[Mirassou]

I don't think you need to tell people they're bad (at least not in regular DF). If you are talking extreme or savage+, okay.

But if you are talking regular duties, just ... don't