How has your mindset changed with regards to other players since your started the ga?

[Liam_Harper]

Definitely when I started I thought the community was really friendly, things like Novice network and commendation systems leave that impression. Now I'd say it's equally toxic to WoW. Not particularly in a terrible way either, both WoW and FF14 have their mix of friendly people who just want to enjoy the game and the bad apples who hurl abuse and gogogo through everything. I can safely say no parsers and super easy friendly content doesn't make the slightest difference, jerks will be jerks and nice people will be nice.

The community is fine regarding performance. I think PF Savage groups do rather well all things considered, pulling 7 other random people into endgame with almost no communication and even coming close to clearing is impressive. I do feel it's a little sad that a lot of the people who under-perform to the point of being unable to beat enrage likely have no clue because Enix goes to great lengths to hide that information. But the fact I can clear anything in PF with a bit of patience is great.

There IS a mentality here that I haven't seen in other MMO's, where it's almost looked down on to want to accomplish things. The community will defend things being dumbed down and turned into once and done 5 minute content, like Normal mode or dungeons or beast tribes or crafting or the relic. If you give the opinion you want to work for things, you're shunned for "excluding" others or showing off. I've also noticed FF14 is the only community that will argue against literally any suggestion for QoL whatsoever, which baffles me.

But overall I've met nice people here. It's a nice game to play.

[HeulGDarian]

i shouldnt post this in this thread but since we opened that can of worms might as well

I am honestly tired of the whole sodding thing to be fair. First i got insulted for being a mentor not cause i did anything but people just went fuck mentors and every mentor is there for the crown and it should be removed and novice network shouldnt talk unless its to help otherwise they just ignore every newbie and if any mentor says anything back he is another mentor, Then i go in game and get insulted twice cause if i die people go lol mentor or if they do something extremely stupid and i ask wtf was that theyll go youre a mentor you should know but i cant answer back else im supposedely toxic. Not only that if i dont say anything im yet again a bad mentor for not explaining and if i explain alot of the time if they arent completely new they either dont listen or dont understand english and yet again i am called a bad toxic mentor. Thankfuly and unfortunately there are exceptions to this i had some pretty good new players who were thankful for helping them with their ex as well as actual mentors who insta left.


Then i get insulted a second time being called an elitist for thinking that a healer who rescued the tank that was single pulling siting on 480 gear and watching his stream instead of tanking isnt a reason to remove rescue or to report the healer as a griefer

Then i get insulted thrice for trying to get into raiding cause of the difficulty and asking for that difficulty to remain cause if i am asking for that im an elitist

Then i get insulted for the fourth time for having a medium house because only cheaters should be able to get one and that means that i should also be a guy with many alts that keeps stealing houses . Im neither of those yet people would rather believe that i am cause then ...??????

Then i get insulted for the fifth time albeit not directly for simply being a lore nerd for my job and after trying to explain to people who skipped it why stuff makes sense they simply dismissed them cause them existing means that their arguements for changing the job are completely false and not only that what i got back from them after that were half truths and bullshit. Saying stuff like , (why would you try to find logic) and (we should remove the dots so that people who like them go to another job) or showing a log to say look dots outdo summons only to check the numbers and find out they had added ruin spells in as well, and basicly destroying the job so that each one could insert their own fanfiction. The most annoying of them all is when people are willingly blind , if you agree with their views alot of people will just not care what you say afterwards, the moment someone disagrees with something that you said theyll either defend it or act like it was never said . The more i think about those stuff the angrier i get tbh but anger doesnt lead to hate like yoda said it leads to disappointment and then apathy and unless Yoshi p and his squad sees this problem as a problem the game will just become worse and worse, and i dont want that, i dont want ff14 to become the second WoW i want it to learn from its mistakes and become better. Yet my friends who played
WoW tell me it already follows the same exact road WoW did.....



I know its just generalization but when i or anyone who this generalization doesnt apply goes and says that maybe they are generalizing too much and the numbers are many times more smaller than they make it look only to be answered with what amounts to basicly : i dont believe you, you are one of them ,i bet you eat babies, Screw you, Death to the aristos . with nobody telling them that hey you went too far then yes its an insult and its a much heavier insult than any swear i could ever get in league , at least there people arent hypocrites trying to sound morally right while being selfish and very much immoral .


I should stop ranting i dont like being mad it makes my head feel wobbly.

[SpiralMask]

as tank: other tanks are not to be trusted (are either directly incompetent/die without using their cooldowns or fight me for aggro and THEN die without using their cooldowns). it's become a bit of a game to see whether i can get aggro back off of them without using taunt or if they die first, because it's always one of the two.
as healer: other healers are not to be trusted (i'm the only one who seems to know how to res, or heal after a big group hit). going through susan EX in early stormblood and having to basically soloheal it broke any trust in other healers I had
as dps: nothing's changed, I'm still doing my own thing from start to finish (throwing out utility stuff where appropriate/helpful, but the rest of the team's actions have very little impact on me overall). much less stressful.

[Illianaro]

Honestly? My mindset has overall improved.

When I first started playing, I was terrified of any group content. I wanted to keep playing because I liked the atmosphere, the world, and was interested in the story, but I avoided grouping like the plague! I'm socially anxious and introverted on the best of days, so for years grouping in content without a friend backing me up was akin to crawling into a den of starving bears (in my mind). This was even as a DPS, nevermind tanking, and the concept of healing was laughable at best.

Now, it's been a long time, and I have become familiar enough with the ins and outs of the game that I am happy to group up, say hello, greet people. For the most part, I've had great experiences with random players in the game. I still can't heal worth a dang, but I'm learning. DPS and tanking, however, are now easily so fun, and I wish I'd gotten over my fear sooner. I thank the trust system for helping me cure my weird anxiety about duties.

Are there groups where things go south or people have no idea what they're doing and run around like chickens with their heads cut off? Of course! Those times can be frustrating, but they can also be SUPER fun.

There are definitely salty people, especially closer to endgame. There are people who bow out of duties that they got in roulette because they didn't get what they wanted. There are people who seem to be waiting for the MOMENT somebody messes up a mechanic or the party wipes ONCE just so that they can fly into a rage. But really, those encounters are few and far between, and when the salty rage monsters end up being the source of their own troubles, all I can really do is take a breath and move on.

So yeah. I went from fearing people and party-centered content to actually genuinely loving this community and the friends I've made in this game.

[Rilifane]

When I started, I thought the community was friendler, more open and welcoming and less toxic than others because of things like mentor system, novice network, commendations, FC housing, people generally greeting each other in party chat, new player notifications in dungeons, no expectation to watch guides etc.
I thought it breeds a more close-knit community where you can learn and improve at your own pace with the main source for help and improvement being other players.

Over the years I noticed the friendliness to be a very shallow one and the FFXIV feeling very clique-y. Little is said openly, escpecially with the ToS getting stricter, giving the GMs the option to ban people for a myriad of reasons but a lot is said behind closed doors. Been in various FCs and it was always the same story: if you weren't already part of a group it was difficult to impossible to be part of a group. Escpecially newer players have a really hard time because of all the "cool kids gangs" that are friendly enough but won't let anyone be part of their inner circle.
The lack of expectations and aversion against advice and constructive criticism didn't lead to an overall more pleasent and relaxed experience. On the contrary, I came to dislike this constant tip-toeing around glaring issues or the lack of respect for each other's time with "my fun" often being the excuse. It's almost as if there is an underlying "anti-improvement" and "anti-effort" mentality here which I have never seen in any MMO. It's really odd what kind of things get defended and how quickly you get shunned for suggesting something even if it's vital for the group's success (not talking about minor rotation mistakes here).

DF is a mixed bag where I met some really nice and helpful players and others that are so hilariously bad and toxic on top of that that it really left me speechless.
PF is... interesting. It's great tool for people without statics and the way it works with various tags, seeing which classes are already present, being able to write strats in the comment etc. is great and makes finding a group for you really easy.
A lot of people join who are clearly not ready for endgame content but unfortunately, they rarely get told so because it might start an argument and someone could get banned for it. Once the player got booted I've heard a lot of nasty things about them.
It can be frustrating hopping from one party to the next because of the influx of players tackling savage while still lacking vital knowledge about the fights and their class but at least it's possible to clear without a static and that's really good! And over time, you get to know plenty of people who do a good job, get invited to linkshells or discords and have ways to minimize the times you spent hours over hours wiping on the same boss to get a reclear.

It's a fun game to play and the community isn't bad just odd when it comes to certain topics.
From the time I started to now I felt a bit disappointed with the community but that has long passed and really, I should've known better than to expect a somehow miraculously superior community.
Humans are humans after all.

[Goji1639]

I've noticed that in FFXIV people seem more passive aggressive and whiny, whereas other MMO's tend to be bluntly insulting. Not sure which I prefer, honestly.

I've also noticed this community seems far less patient with new players than other MMO's, which is weird for a more casual MMO like this. It might be because of the level synching and specific mechanics, which make it more obvious when someone is playing poorly.

Either way, I don't play this game for it's community. As far as premier MMO's go it's basically between FFXIV and WoW, and, although I think this game has the worst community of the two, I like it's world, visuals, characters, story, etc. better.

Edit: Would actually like to expand on WHY WoW has a better community, at least from what I've seen.

First, I'll point out that I haven't done any Savage or other serious content in this game; so maybe this games raiding scene is less toxic than WoW.

In most casual content however, it's amazing how different the communities are. In WoW, for better or worse, people are generally willing to carry new players through easy content without getting pissy about it. I rarely, if ever saw people taking little cheap shots at struggling players, taking a whiny tone with them, or trying to force them to do things they're not comfortable with.

In this game, however; so much whining. It's like a new player ruined everyone's day if he made the run take 5 minutes longer than it had to. It's all over the forums to, how the community views playing poorly as "disrespectful to the group for wasting their time," lol.

[MelodyCrystel]

Adding to what OP and Rilifane (comment 35) already said:

In my case, it's not just me getting more and more cynical, but also me as a pseudo-senior in the game noticing how the behaviour of new players changed in the last 5 years.

When I was new, there seemed to be nobody in our merry "we are green behind the ears"-boat who would get upset when veterans gave an advice on mechanics, how to use some skills or explaining general stuff about instances. To be blunt, all we amateurs on big-old Chaos were happy when people took the time to teach us something.

Now, it's 50/50 whether a new player will be glad or angry. You can be as polite as you want to, there's still the chance someone will behead you for giving an advice. The word "Elitist" flies so careless out of the window that it's baffling.

The greatest annoyance considering mentioned oddity, from my experience, are the LV50 24-people-raids.
->I have seen everything from the classical "Shut up" to very impolite phrases I will better not quote here. Worst is, that even players react that way who have maybe cleared these raids once or twice yet definitely haven't understood what to do when.

And the stuff many players will excuse on the contrary makes everything just weirder and weirder.

->Like a tank yesterday, who kept in World of Darkness the dragon close to the entry and didn't even go North after his healer tried to Rescue-pull him there.
You think people told him he was doing something wrong?
...
Nope.
...
But the vocal ones attacked ME when I informed the tank about his mistake. Half my group had to die thanks to AOEs everywhere until the tank finally brought the dragon at least to the middle of the field.

I can't talk about the US-/JPN-datacenters, but the servers here are sometimes filled with new people who just want to rush stuff and don't understand they have to learn mechanics on the way in order to have already mastered them in endgame-area.

->From my point of view, gaining massive EXP for a character can't replace the experience a player must gather themselves to understand stuff just by looking at it. But obviously it's more important to reach LV80 as fast as possible without getting used to standard-mechanics.

[Gothicshark]

My perception of people has differed greatly from ARR time.

General Players:
I've gotten more cynical over the years and just move on, someone's doing something stupid gee must be a day that ends in y, but I do still have fun with random people even to this day just now more people seem to be afraid to open their mouth.

Tank players:
I come to expect big pulls as an automatic thing now, by making things more accessible I expect more from the individual since it is not as hard as having to Flash spam anymore.

Healers:
I expect healers to dps as a given now, anyone not even attempting DoTs I find incredibly selfish and wasting my time no matter how good healing they do, this wasn't the case when og cleric was thing because of how punishing it was on a misclick, harpens back to tank note by making it more accessible I expect more outta people.

Dps:
I expect them to eat more aoes than ever before, idk why my opinion is so low but I certainly didn't expect them eating dirt as much years ago


Just how I have gradually changed through the community how about you all?

not a new player friendly set of opinions. What if someone is learning a new Class/Job? Those are some really obnoxious and fairly toxic WOW level opinions. My take, go play World of Warcrap, you'll fit in with that amount of judgment.

[SpiralMask]

. . .

Personally I disagree: I'd say this game's playerbase is shockingly patient with newbies in this game... provided they have the sprout icon (at least on my server/DC).
once that's gone all bets are off, and I find the returner status is often ignored despite filling a similar role of telegraphing "hey i probably don't know things".

Savage/EX content is an exception since it's hard content for everyone and implies/demands a certain level of preparedness and technical skill, which is why [duty complete] exists to help separate that iirc.

[Billythepancake]

not a new player friendly set of opinions. What if someone is learning a new Class/Job? Those are some really obnoxious and fairly toxic WOW level opinions. My take, go play World of Warcrap, you'll fit in with that amount of judgment.

Context is everything. If I'm put in sastasha because of DF and I see my healer is a level 16 CNJ and that's the only class they have unlocked, yeah I can put 2 and 2 together and figure out they're probably not going to be the best healer I've ever had.

Meanwhile if I go into expert roulette and I see you have most classes as 80 and you're a level 80 SCH that spams adlo like no tomorrow and can't use a single bio, yeah, I'm going to think you're trash.