"Play XIV if(cont)" and"you have a responsibility to" are not statements that coexist

[Jojoya]

That said, I've run into more players who don't understand the basics of their class even at lvl 80 than I've met players who expect perfection in story difficulty content. And to be honest, if you are at endgame, you don't have the excuse of being new. You've been playing for hundreds of hours. Most RPGs (games in general really) are much shorter amd ask much more of you within their length.

Hundreds of hours of time played does not mean hundreds of hours of combat experience. The bulk of game time for a new player is watching cutscenes, reading dialog and traveling to the next quest objective. We end up with something closer to 15 hours of combat time (mostly in dungeons where a new player is getting carried by veteran players who know the dungeon inside and out, and are overpowered due to the way level sync works) per 100 hours played.

So when it comes to combat, someone at 80 could still have the excuse of being new because the game hasn't put them in the position of needing to learn how to use their job competently. Get the occasional "kill 5 beasties" as a quest objective? Those beasties can be killed using the basic attack combo with no need to dive into more advanced aspects of the job kit (assuming the player has access to most of it at their level). It's hard to learn when combat doesn't last long enough in most of the combat situations you encounter.

I can't blame the new player that much when they haven't really had an opportunity to learn in an environment that is dumbed done for the sake of veteran players who want to get in and out of that dungeon they've done dozens of times before as fast as possible. Think about it - dungeons have been given a 90 minute expiration timer but many veteran players get angry if the dungeon run lasts more than 15 minutes. How is the new player supposed to learn when they're effectively being dragged along in the wake of a speed run? How much better would they be if things actually took time to die so they had to learn how to use more than just Fire 1 efficiently?

It's really easy to forget as a veteran MMO player what it's like to be a new player without a clue what to expect or what you should be doing. I can remember being a WoW noob with only single player RPG experience to draw on. There were some really dumb mistakes and assumptions I had been making when I first started playing that I could only recognize in hindsight. But I had to learn faster there because WoW is much more heavily combat focused during the leveling experience than FFXIV is.

Am I going to cut the new player in this game, even if they're at level cap, some slack as a result? Absolutely. Not everyone is a gaming genius.

[Vidu]

People got into the Final Fantasy series for the story. If they didn't, they would have focused on a more challenging, gameplay focused series.

Please, lets not pretend like all other Final Fantasy games are basically storytelling Walking Simulators that dont have any meaningful gameplay and dont punish you if you fail to understand said gameplay...

Yes, the story is an important part and at the heart of pretty much every Final Fantasy. But that doesnt mean that they're completly devoid of at least mildly challenging gameplay and wont punish you if you fail at that.
I remember my first time playing FFX - I lost count how often I wiped to Efrye, that stupid red dragon you fight on top of the airship before getting into Bevelle. (In hindsight I was probably underleveld and had relied on Yuna to much in previous fights). Since then I replayed FFX with my partner and just a couple of weeks ago we wiped trying to fight Judgment (yeah, yeah, super boss at the end). I remember my brother quitting FFII because he walked into the wrong direction right at the start of the game and got kinda lost in an area where he wasnt supposed to be - something the monsters let him know by one shotting his characters.

As important as the story might be, FF games always had gameplay aswell - not super extreme hardcore gameplay, but challenging enough that you had to think about what you're doing, you had to know what skills/spells your party had at their disposal and how to use them. You dont need to know the optimal strategy for each boss or use special exploits or anything like that, but you need a basic understanding of the gameplay or you wont get far.
The big diffrence is that if you fail in a single player game the game ends. For you. It has no effect on anyone else. If you dont want to learn said basic mechanics: Cool, you're out of 50 bucks (or whatever you paid for the game) and thats it.

FFXIV and at large its community doesnt ask anymore of you than the old FFs did: Know the basic gameplay rules. Thats mostly your rotation or your job skills if your job doesnt has a clear rotation aswell as some basic mechanics (like "Dont stand in orange circles", "Stack with a stackmarker" etc.) - pretty much what the old FFs had aswell.
But if you fail here, it as a negative impact on 3/7/23 other people - in my experience they'll tolerate a few failures, but it still had that negative impact. Which is why you'll see people asking for being mindful and respectful of your fellow players - by making sure that you grasp the basics of the game, just how the old FFs asked you to grasp the basics of their game.

The story of any FF has always been locked behind gameplay - this MMO only allows you, in theory, to "skip" part of that gameplay should you fail it - by having other people carry you through it. These people not being thrilled by that is more than understandable.
In any other FF you wouldnt even be able to see the story if you didnt learn how to play the game.

Final Fantasy isnt a game for someone who doesnt want to see a story.
But its also not a game for someone who doesnt want any kind of gameplay that will require them to use skills at the right time and understand the mechanics of a fight.

[GeminiReed]

There's being hyper-optimal and there's being functional.

A tank in level 15 gear with an ilvl 5 weapon doing Garuda normal is not going to function correctly as a tank. Heck they wouldn't even function properly as a DPS. This did happen to me. Unfortunately the healer was not god-tier so the tank essentially folded whenever the boss cackled. Fortunately both DPS were overgeared and we managed to kill it on pull 3 or 4. No amount of advice or understanding is going to make that a pleasant situation for anybody.

Getting normal trials in Leveling Roulette is annoying on its own if you're there for XP (I was). Having it take the time of a more lucrative dungeon was just the icing on the cake.

I get that people come here for the story unfortunately Square chose to gate story with mandatory team instances (and vice-versa). If you can't function don't inflict yourself on PUGs.

[Merrnryn]

I have been playing this game for many years, as well as many other MMORPGs, and in many instances, these are newer issues. Story AND gameplay went hand in hand. They should not be separated from the other. Everyone should be able to enjoy the story AND play the game, casual, hardcore, etc. The disconnect is the player base themselves. I have seen instances of a party in Arum Vale screaming at a dps and calling them insulting names for killing the morbol pods and not letting them 'hatch'. I have seen people say and mean "you don't pay my sub." I have seen sprouts be handheld I have seen sprouts be harassed and abused. I have seen the same for new content. I went in with friends yesterday, new to diamond. The tank was so toxic (mind you this is story normal mode, not EX) and was screaming at anyone and everyone how they should know the mechanics and this and that, First-day content.

The disconnect comes mostly from a lack of patience and care toward each other once that magical sprout is gone. No one is perfect, those 99 parses or for some blue or purple, etc? How many hours did it take you to get there, how many deaths, damage downs. Hours and hours and hours. Yet when someone new comes in on a practice party there is always that one player that pulls twice then leaves with nothing nice to say at all on their departure. That or the anger and frustration set in.

Story and Gameplay are meant to coexist, the game was designed for such. It's impatience, elitism, and a general feeling of no culpability because it is an online interaction and we can hide behind an avatar and our screens. Therefore we can say what we like, how we like because there is literally 0 culpability aside maybe a blist. These people don't care because there are always more people and players. Start taking that culpability, and understand your actions and words have consequences.

"It's just a game" Needs to stop, Yes it is 'just a game' Yet, we all are interacting with real people, who have real feelings. You know that frustration you feel when a party member doesn't get a mechanic? Likely so are they and screwing up even more because they feel like crap about not understanding it, but the community is so nasty to people that do mess up, they won't speak up. Instead, reign it in and ask them if they are having trouble. If there is any way you can help. Ask them what about the mechanic has them confused or not getting. Sometimes it could be a camera issue, not everyone is great at moving a camera and character around independently from the other. Maybe they can't get a camera angle correct. Maybe they have a low frame rate. Who knows.

Be kind. Kindness costs nothing.
Story and Game can go hand in hand, they can co-exist.

[ItMe]

People got into the Final Fantasy series for the story. If they didn't, they would have focused on a more challenging, gameplay focused series.

A.) People go into FF for any number of reasons (I personally hate the writing for 99% of Final Fantasy games). Heck, a lot of the people I know play FF games either because they're pretty or because they're popular/high profile.

B.) Why can't a game have a good story and good gameplay? It's not like SQEX 1 person working on both things and they need to choose which to prioritize.

[Novae]

OP, just do your thing in game, you'll realize that DF and PF are pretty chill places (yes even in savage). And to be honest, playing a job at its best is very satisfying. It's just the same as cooking a good meal. It's a really positive experience for you and everyone else around the table.

[Enla]

OP, just do your thing in game, you'll realize that DF and PF are pretty chill places (yes even in savage). And to be honest, playing a job at its best is very satisfying. It's just the same as cooking a good meal. It's a really positive experience for you and everyone else around the table.

Yep, I'm not the best DPS as a healer (generally parse green or blue, sometimes grey if I'm having a bad day) but my static doesn't mind that so long as I actually put in the effort and keep them alive. Even outside of my static most people aren't going to get on my case for low numbers. More often than not people get mad at you for deaths that harm the party more than damage numbers anyways - as when I'm farming higher content that's almost always what gets people kicked. Not the grey parse, but the fact that their constant mistakes are making it impossible to clear. Just put forth a genuine effort and 99% of the players in this game will honestly not care unless you're doing Ultimates. If you sit back and expect to be carried however then yes, people do have a right to be annoyed.

[Puremallace]

One section of FF14 I will never do is Savage raiding. If I wanted to get yelled at by neckbeards hyper concerned with parses in an MMO then I would just go back to WoW that allows actual addons and coordinated guilds not people playing pretend.

Noone at Square Enix actually enforces the rules on using DPS meters and the proof is they have a MASSIVE list of players on FFlogs that use it actively that they do literally nothing about. It is pretty hypocritical of them to say they are against meters but then allow an entire site to be built around it.

[Vidu]

One section of FF14 I will never do is Savage raiding. If I wanted to get yelled at by neckbeards hyper concerned with parses in an MMO then I would just go back to WoW that allows actual addons and coordinated guilds not people playing pretend.

What if I told you that you can do Savage raiding in FFXIV without getting yelled at?
Make no mistake: I dont want to convince anyone to raid who isnt intrested in it, but I dont think its a fair representation of raiding as whole what you're describing here... I wont doubt that there are statics out there like that - but its very possible to find a more casual raidgroup or from one consisting of friends or more like minded people (the kind that doesnt like to yell or get yelled at).

You do you, of course... but personally I'm enjoying yell-free raiding with friends for over 4 years now. We're far, far from making any world first lists, but we're having lots of fun - and no yelling.

[Puremallace]

What if I told you that you can do Savage raiding in FFXIV without getting yelled at?
Make no mistake: I dont want to convince anyone to raid who isnt intrested in it, but I dont think its a fair representation of raiding as whole what you're describing here... I wont doubt that there are statics out there like that - but its very possible to find a more casual raidgroup or from one consisting of friends or more like minded people (the kind that doesnt like to yell or get yelled at).

You do you, of course... but personally I'm enjoying yell-free raiding with friends for over 4 years now. We're far, far from making any world first lists, but we're having lots of fun - and no yelling.

Look this nice community everyone praises FF14 stops at the party finder for Savage fights and getting this harmonious static group concept that was developed when this MMO was 7/8 of the way to being dead over 7 years ago is not my idea of fun. There is a good reason FF14 is not known for its raid content and this static stuff, memorizing 12+ min fights and maintaining perfect rotations to keep from getting yelled at is why.

You can paint whatever rosy picture you want but when it comes to Savage raiding that is easily the biggest turn off for most new players who would just go back to WoW if they wanted that much of a toxic experience. I avoid it and I am definitely not alone in that opinion. It is a night and day experience with this MMO that makes a lot of people stop trying.

If the high end communities goal was to drive as many people away from savage then they have succeeded without a doubt. There is a reason Delubrum Savage was dead content within a week and they had to change the rules for how to queue for it and it is not because the content was boring.

The easiest way to fix all of this for Square Enix would be to give HEAVY incentives for FC's to form into more coordinated raiding groups with bigger Savage raids of 16+ people. That alone would kill this static clique stuff you see and force people to organize into groups that see each other more often then once every content patch cycle.