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

[EirolOcarrol]

I struggled to get this in the title. But something that's been bothering me for a while is that while we sing the praises of this game and its story and world. Often comparing it favorably with other titles in the Final Fantasy series.

Journalists writing articles like "Shadowbringers is the best Final Fantasy game in years". Players telling people who are fans of the Final Fantasy series in general, not to be intimidated by the fact it's an MMORPG, and that if they let it being an online game put them off, they're missing out on more Final Fantasy content and fun. And to "please not worry" that it's an online game in general.

The idea being that a lot of Final Fantasy fans don't want to put up with an MMORPG, and are put off by the term and concept. They just want to play a Final Fantasy. And people try to convince those hardcore Final Fantasy or RPG fans to try XIV. That it's just as Final Fantasy as the rest.


But they the community turns around and says things like if you're not longer a sprout, you don't have room to make mistakes. Yell at people for messing up unusual dungeons or trials like the Chrysalis, who don't know when to use a limit break there. Not knowing the mechanics of a boss already. Berate people for not knowing what to do in the Crystal Tower raid series, who are going there for the story for the first time(like not knowing what to do for Cerberus). Getting annoyed with tanks for not grabbing over a dozen enemies and moving super quickly through the dungeon. Saying that YoshiP is wrong for being against parsers, and that "casuals" who parse low are the toxic ones.

Wanting to win, and wanting to help people around battles is fine. But advice is often far from friendly. And the expectations people have on people, with the reasoning that "well, you're playing an online game, so you have the responsibility to be good at playing for your team. If you don't want to be an amazing player and metagamer, you shouldn't be playing XIV." Or, that people should watch a guide for a dungeon that would be a spoiler to do so.

And these are two statements that absolutely cannot coexist. And I'm amazed by just how impatient and meta focused, and criticizing people can be for a role playing game. A game and genre focused on storytelling and worldbuilding.

Like, XIV can be a "hardcore" game for impatient players racing to some kind of goal, and can't afford a single inconvenience of slight DPS loss. Or it can be a game that any Final Fantasy fan can enjoy.

It can't be both. And expecting people to be pro veterans in order to play the game is silly. And honestly I understand why YoshiP and the team err on the side of discouraging elitism and entitlement as much as they can. They're much more in danger of people harassing others for not playing well than they are from people who aren't good telling others "you don't pay my sub".

Honestly, in my time adventuring, I haven't come across a single person who said "you don't pay my sub". And among the most toxic things in that variety was a tank in a party telling someone off by saying "I know what I'm doing". And they seemed like an aggressive person in general.

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.

People either need to accept that Final Fantasy XIV may not be for Final Fantasy fans, and accept disgruntled fans of the series who don't want to give online RPGs a chance. Or, not act like people who don't like parsers are the problem.

I don't know how else to say it. Getting irritated at people who don't use a ranged DPS limit break on Nero, because it saves just a few short seconds, does not make a lifelong Final Fantasy VI fan want to play Final Fantasy XIV. Or make the proposition look enticing.

[Jijifli]

tl;dr, Parsing bad, I wanna play vercure mage.

I've never seen anyone actually get upset at anyone for not doing 99 percentile, ever. EVER. Usually it's people being borderline afk for "the story" that get people going.

[Reinha]

Can people not enjoy a final fantasy game and play well at the same time?

Just tell people that you don't know the raid mechanics and people will help. You are supposed to know how to play your job, though. Double pulls are possible even in a dungeon you are new to, because they are all similar enough.

[SturmChurro]

Can people not enjoy a final fantasy game and play well at the same time?

Just tell people that you don't know the raid mechanics and people will help. You are supposed to know how to play your job, though. Double pulls are possible even in a dungeon you are new to, because they are all similar enough.

Oh, so that's what this thread is about? Yeah, for real. Apparently, playing well is heresy according to some. Heck, not even "well", how about playing at an "acceptable" level.

[EirolOcarrol]

Oh, so that's what this thread is about? Yeah, for real. Apparently, playing well is heresy according to some. Heck, not even "well", how about playing at an "acceptable" level.

I don't think it's a heresy to anyone. There's a reason that they've banned some streamers using parsers for calling out other people and being toxic.

Being able to clear dungeons ought to be enough. But this forum already has many people who immediately shoot down ideas because "this might ruin the balance and nobody wants to have someone in their party with slightly less job efficiency". That degree of hyperfocus on efficiency, any everything outside of it being limited to limit jobs, seems obsessive. Every job has always been able to clear all dungeons. And a hyperfocus on efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, at the cost of anything that might bring diversity to play. Seems like an unhealthy fixation. Not to mention people not being accommodating to new players. You don't have to be a sprout to be new. People who rushed through the MSQ are still sprouts in a sense, even if the game doesn't call them sprouts.

There are people out there who will downright tell people that they don't deserve to play Final Fantasy XIV because of a mistake they made. And that's not healthy for any game, let alone a Final Fantasy game.

[Brightamethyst]

Being able to clear dungeons ought to be enough. But this forum already has many people who immediately shoot down ideas because "this might ruin the balance and nobody wants to have someone in their party with slightly less job efficiency". That degree of hyperfocus on efficiency, any everything outside of it being limited to limit jobs, seems obsessive. Every job has always been able to clear all dungeons. And a hyperfocus on efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, at the cost of anything that might bring diversity to play. Seems like an unhealthy fixation.

There are different ways of measuring success. Yes, clearing a dungeon is an objective, true/false statement, but it's not the only part of the equation. No one complains about people being sub-optimal. They complain about people being bad. There's a big difference. Failing a new mechanic a few times is fine, and completely understandable. Never getting better at said mechanic even after learning how it works is poor play (in normal content. I'm not talking about things like savage where mechanics are intentionally hard even when you do understand them.).

If a tank wants to take it slow, or someone new to a job is doing low DPS, or we wipe because a sprout doesn't understand mechanics, or whatever, cool. It's part of the normal experience. It may turn a 20 minute dungeon into a 30 minute dungeon but that's within the standard deviation and few people will complain about it. If that 20 minute dungeon turns into a 45 minute dungeon though? Even if you clear in the end something was objectively wrong.

[NanaWiloh]

I don't think it's a heresy to anyone. There's a reason that they've banned some streamers using parsers for calling out other people and being toxic.

Being able to clear dungeons ought to be enough. But this forum already has many people who immediately shoot down ideas because "this might ruin the balance and nobody wants to have someone in their party with slightly less job efficiency". That degree of hyperfocus on efficiency, any everything outside of it being limited to limit jobs, seems obsessive. Every job has always been able to clear all dungeons. And a hyperfocus on efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, at the cost of anything that might bring diversity to play. Seems like an unhealthy fixation. Not to mention people not being accommodating to new players. You don't have to be a sprout to be new. People who rushed through the MSQ are still sprouts in a sense, even if the game doesn't call them sprouts.

There are people out there who will downright tell people that they don't deserve to play Final Fantasy XIV because of a mistake they made. And that's not healthy for any game, let alone a Final Fantasy game.

I play to the best of my ability, I dont mind people who parse. But as someone who does not do savage or Ultimate my performance in my mind is my own business. I have hidden my logs ON THE SITE that shall not be mentioned for this reason; and the fact that someone chose to jump on my tail here on the forum about not parsing high. Even worse said player was hiding behind an alt!!! Which explains my signature :P If you are hiding your logs or hiding behind an alt, then you got no business critizing other players about their logs.

Just my two cents on that matter

[Awha]

I don't think it's a heresy to anyone. There's a reason that they've banned some streamers using parsers for calling out other people and being toxic.

Being able to clear dungeons ought to be enough. But this forum already has many people who immediately shoot down ideas because "this might ruin the balance and nobody wants to have someone in their party with slightly less job efficiency". That degree of hyperfocus on efficiency, any everything outside of it being limited to limit jobs, seems obsessive. Every job has always been able to clear all dungeons. And a hyperfocus on efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, at the cost of anything that might bring diversity to play. Seems like an unhealthy fixation. Not to mention people not being accommodating to new players. You don't have to be a sprout to be new. People who rushed through the MSQ are still sprouts in a sense, even if the game doesn't call them sprouts.

There are people out there who will downright tell people that they don't deserve to play Final Fantasy XIV because of a mistake they made. And that's not healthy for any game, let alone a Final Fantasy game.

So more or less you are saying assholes will be assholes? That has nothing to do with FFXIV in general that is just a product of some people just not being nice.

This may be an RPG but it is an MMO first, which means you are going to run into other people, and people are under no obligation to like one another. Run into an asshole ignore them and move on. Cause end of the day they do not care about your feelings or anything you are going through, so you are wasting your time letting what they say get to you. To them you are irrelevant, and tbh they should also be irrelevant to you.

[Lanadra]

I don't think it's a heresy to anyone. There's a reason that they've banned some streamers using parsers for calling out other people and being toxic.

Being able to clear dungeons ought to be enough. But this forum already has many people who immediately shoot down ideas because "this might ruin the balance and nobody wants to have someone in their party with slightly less job efficiency". That degree of hyperfocus on efficiency, any everything outside of it being limited to limit jobs, seems obsessive. Every job has always been able to clear all dungeons. And a hyperfocus on efficiency, efficiency, efficiency, at the cost of anything that might bring diversity to play. Seems like an unhealthy fixation. Not to mention people not being accommodating to new players. You don't have to be a sprout to be new. People who rushed through the MSQ are still sprouts in a sense, even if the game doesn't call them sprouts.

There are people out there who will downright tell people that they don't deserve to play Final Fantasy XIV because of a mistake they made. And that's not healthy for any game, let alone a Final Fantasy game.

This to me sounds like you didn't take the responses to your subjobs thread very well. For me personally it isn't even about efficiency, as I said in that thread, I just don't like a system that suddenly cordons off part of what I could use without limitations before.

[Gameovers]

This to me sounds like you didn't take the responses to your subjobs thread very well. For me personally it isn't even about efficiency, as I said in that thread, I just don't like a system that suddenly cordons off part of what I could use without limitations before.

I agree with you 100% It does sound like that.