Discussion on the <Blacklist> function

[Raqrie_Tohka]

I don't usually vote to kick people, or try to kick people myself. If a PF party isn't working worse case we just leave, because as the saying goes, "this isn't worth me getting contacted by a GM".

However, please see my stance on this:
1. The more enacted toxicity I encounter, aka. blacklisting, kicking, vote-kicking I see, the more I feel I should use and abuse these functions too, because these are "quiet" and officially approved ways to take my toxicity out at people.
2. There is so much toxicity. Both my savage party finder clears today, almost every party I was in, someone used some strong words. I was helping out a FC member in Titania normal clear today, and a vote-kick was started against one of the dps, probably for making a mistake from being new or just because someone thought the dps was low. Prejudice, and a thinking that prejudice is justified, and that acting on it is justified, permeates most content. Even low-end content, it occur occasionally. We have a lot of the "supertank" threads whining on forums too.
3. The core problem is lack of communication (and more). There may be actual reasons such as people being tired, language barriers, not wanting to give a care after a week of wiping in PF. But most people, even if they are tired, will be rational and opened to discussion / analysis, if it was friendly. However, even slight agitation, will prompt mirrored responses.
4. Mirrored responses, a full circle, INCLUDES all these extreme and final ways of dealing with people. It's almost as if SE says "you people are a lost cause, just enjoy this content we created that does not require any human contact in principle at all, and if you don't even wanna try, use these power-fantasy tools to enact your will upon other people!"
5. This slowly pushes the overall game into a certain social atmosphere and tints the nature of ALL activity within the game.

No person is purely by nature, toxic. Harsh corporate controls exist for stability and risk management, sometimes risk offloading from the company. It exists foremost, to protect the company, and manage social perceptions that the company is doing their social responsibility, but which the company can manage within an affordable cost. Thus simpler systems. Ofc SE is not like some very bad companies or very unlucky companies having to deal with truly extreme situations in truly eyebrow-raising ways. But toxicity is inherently one of the core problems of multiplayer games, since forever.

And what I currently think is, although the way the system is managed in this game is not the worse I've seen, the taste it leaves in my mouth is one of the worse I've tasted.

Call me an idiot unable to express or even think clearly, but does this game have perfect systems? Is the novice network completely perfect in both operation, and its nature? Are improvements not possible? Can you try to consider things from another person's perspective without either outright dismissing them first or thinking that it means you have to force yourself to accept their viewpoint first? Is the only allowed viewpoint, the correct viewpoint and the viewpoint that thinks "everything should be fine, and anyone saying is otherwise themselves, part of the trouble"?

I don't have any good, actual solutions or even suggestions atm (if I did I'd work for SE), but some thinking, empathy, just putting thoughts out there, shouldn't hurt. Or do we need blacklist feature for forums as well?

[Vidu]

-snip-

There are several things wrong with this post and I'll try to adress them in a sensible order:

1) You need to stop lumping "blacklisting someone" and "removing someone from a party" together. They're not the same.
2) How does blacklisting someone create a toxic or negative enviroment? I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this, because what blacklisting is supposed to do - and does, at least to an extend - is allowing you to create a "better" enviroment for yourself, by removing people (to an extend) from it that make your experience unpleasent. Someone is using foul language? You can add them to your blacklist and you dont have to deal with that anymore, ergo your experience just got better.
3) Your whole post sounds like you want to force people to solve issues that might lead to blacklisting and/or dismissing someone. In a sense I can see that point: If I blacklist someone whos using foul language it doesnt solve the actual problem of that person using foul language. I just dont have to see it anymore. But that is actually enough. The game - or its players - arent here to "educate" other people on whats good and bad behavior that way. The game is supposed to be fun and people are here to have fun, so all thats needed are the tools to ensure that your fun isnt "harmed". Among those tools are things like blacklisting people who would harm your fun.
4) If I want to blacklist someone for cause - harrassment, for example - or want to dismiss them from a dungeon with cause - for being disruptive, for example - I dont need to show them "empathy" or consider their view of the situation. Sorry to burst your little bubble here, but I dont really care why someone felt it was okay to insult someone or that people think their 13€ a month entitle them to play however they want and dont consider that they're in a team-based-dungeon. All I need is to remove such a person from my experience.
5) Minor note, but: We do have a blacklist-feature on the forums. Its called "Ignore" here and while it doesnt prevent people from posting in threads created by you or makes you invisble to them, it does hide all posts from that person so you dont have to see them.

I know that a lot of people view MMOs not only as a game but also as some kind of social hub - and thats alright, because MMOs do provide both kinds of experience. I always felt like it was wrong to put such a strong emphasis on the social aspect, at least when it comes to modern MMOs or to a themepark MMO that offers a lot of casual content like FFXIV.
In my personal opinion this game should focus on providing a good game-experience to its playerbase, not a good social experience (I'm not saying the social experience should be bad, though). The blacklist-feature helps with providing a good game-experience by allowing you to remove people from your sight who harm that experience. The same goes for the kick-feature - if someone is disruptive to a dungeon-run the party should have the option to remove them, so they can continue to enjoy the game.

I know all of this sounds pretty cold, but my point here is that I simply dont think that we as a playerbase or SE as the developer should put effort into basically "educating" people on good (or at least appropriate) behavior. Thats something you should already bring to the table when you start playing the game or, in case of your personal skill with the game, develop while playing it.

Blacklisting and dismissing dont add to a toxic enviroment, they help you to remove toxicity from your own personal gaming experience within FFXIV. They might not solev the underlying problem of "there are jerks in the world", but they dont have to. The game doesnt have to solve that problem. All it needs to do is give you tools to keep those jerks out of your way so you can enjoy the game.
This isnt a school for good manners, its a videogame. Dont ask it to be more.

Bottomline: Blacklisting and dismissing - while being two quite different tools - arent "toxic". They're tools that help you to deal with any "toxic" (or even just unpleasent) people you encounter and rather not have to deal with.