"Everyone's so open and friendly" is a lie

[Rinhi]

What about those who think this community is nice enough?

this might come as a surprise, but I do think it's nice enough in a sense, as I think it's not a bad one but it could really use a little bit less handholding/coddling

If the community is super toxic, you wouldn't need a special place to collect bad experiences. It will just be the norm of what people expect.

lol, lmao even
you know why they had to make that place? because everything in that sub got - and would get - downvoted to oblivion and further by the 'nice' community
ffxiv is filled with YPYT drivel, filled with people enabling 0 dps healers in high lvl content, filled with players that go at your throat if you insist that one should learn their class a bit, ones that attack you for 'ruining players fun' by wall-to-walling or asking the tank/dps to use their combo and not only an uncombo'd finisher etc
of course people will make a subreddit where they can talk about their bad experiences if talking about it on the mainsub would get you shunned/attacked/harassed/downvoted

[LittleImp]

everyone that thinks this community is nothing but nice should read that place, just to see how many of those 'nice' players are super toxic

That subreddit is an interesting place because the toxicity comes from all angles. There's examples of toxicity in the chatlogs and stories, but there's also an insane amount of toxicity in the comments coming from the people who browse it for validation as well. It's a weird space where both genuine elitism and genuine toxic casualism are constantly on full display, and is basically a great place to see some of the worst aspects of the community in their natural habitat. A nightmare zone where you'll see phrases like "You pull it you tank it" and "Low orange parse" within 5 minutes of eachother haha.

[Michieltjuhh]

And I disagree that they are used as generic insults. They are used as a label, sure, but people use labels to identify. It's what people associate with those labels that determine whether it's a positive usage or negative. Streamers welcoming new WoW players can title their stream with "WoW refugees are welcomed." If anything, the term refugee is an insult for WoW, as if it's a game that has refugees, not the refugees.

I can think of a historic label or two.. or a dozen, used to identify people, that will get you in trouble if you use them (with good reason), while being considered 'normal' back in the day.

I see them used as insults pretty frequently, usually as a way to explain why someone is playing poorly. I've even been called a WoW refugee nonsensically a bunch of times, usually when someone gets angry in a prog or learning party. One time I had a healer in a dungeon get extremely angry that I was pulling big and "facing my back towards the mobs" as a tank, and they proceeded to repeatedly and baselessly accuse me of being a WoW refugee and went on a rant for the entire remainder of the dungeon about how all WoW players are stupid. I've seen similar things happen to friends; if you browse r/talesfromDF you'll see it fairly frequently in both the posts themselves, and the comments. A lot of the time when someone recounts a negative experience in a dungeon, people will immediately start saying things like "must have been a WoW refugee".

This is quite amusing to me, because in my experience having played both games at a high level I find that the average player in WoW is a lot better than the average player in FF14, because WoW fosters a toxic elitism mentality where people have to improve and perform to succeed while FF14 fosters a toxic casualism mentality where players get rewarded for underperforming just as much as the ones doing all the work, with any way of measuring performance being forbidden.

For example, the amount of times I see people go through Castrum Lacus Litore, Delubrum Reginae and The Dalriada while refusing to pop a 600 gil Essence is staggering. They then proceed to warm the floor for the majority of encounters. And you'll be crucified if you don't accept this as the norm. Some of them are new players in which case it's fine - ironically in many cases they're the supposed "WoW refugees" that don't know about Essences and don't know the mechanics yet - but there's plenty of high merit stacked players doing this as well. That's your FF14 veterans right there; the pinnacle of the great FF14 community.

[Kozh]

Yeah, it has happened to a number of people who attempted to role-play a Garlean or some other form of antagonist. Even people portraying defectors are targeted at times. The game seems to have a large number of individuals who see their character as 'themselves' and as such act like anything in opposition to their self insert is the worst, most brutal thing ever to exist.

I stopped bothering with the FFXIV Reddit altogether simply because a single mention of anyone liking the Ascians or the Garleans has a habit of devolving into accusations of those people being 'terrible people'. I can only assume there's a lot of people playing this game who do not realise that fictional characters are just that - fictional.

Oh god, this reminds me of that time on reddit where I comment to an Ascian related thread. I was just saying "if ffxiv has choices, I would side with emet", and unsurprisingly got called real life nazi and genocider, I kid you not.

Isn't that actually kinda insensitive to compare something fictional to horrible real life events?

[linayar]

Isn't that actually kinda insensitive to compare something fictional to horrible real life events?

Ugh, this response may get deleted, but we'll see.

Speaking of insensitivity, I feel like people can be too sensitive sometimes (on both sides). Like the comparison you mention. First of all, any serious comparison would fail because they are two different circumstances. But generally speaking, it seems to me the comparison is about treating a certain group of people as, not people, but a means for a so-called superior race of beings to thrive. In that sense, the comparison is valid.

But, of course, people don't like to be associated with real life public enemy, and so emotion and sensitivity comes into the mix. Fair enough, as I also think people who prefer Emet's side can and should defend their positions. It could make an interesting discussion, but we can't ignore the moral issue, so emotions would be there.

[Lauront]

Oh god, this reminds me of that time on reddit where I comment to an Ascian related thread. I was just saying "if ffxiv has choices, I would side with emet", and unsurprisingly got called real life nazi and genocider, I kid you not.

Isn't that actually kinda insensitive to compare something fictional to horrible real life events?

I've had similar for that exact reason. It's more virulent on reddit.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I see this everywhere, yeah. There is a huge, weird thing going on in fandoms where your taste in fictional characters directly reflects who you are as a person. And if you like villains or antagonists or any character who is less than perfect, or ships that are less fluffy than your average coffee-shop-AU-fic, then you are an abuse apologist and you are "normalizing" toxic relationships. It's insane.

Yeah it’s ridiculous. Personally since i’m more interested in the ascians than the main protagonist cast, and i’m vocal about that i’ve faced a loooot of the typical, “you support genocide, nazi, how dare you like garlemald etc etc,” and it’s just so annoying to put it plainly. People’s love for antagonists can actually fuel really good debate between players but for some reason in this community it’s like some horrible sin.

[Kozh]

Ugh, this response may get deleted, but we'll see.

Speaking of insensitivity, I feel like people can be too sensitive sometimes (on both sides). Like the comparison you mention. First of all, any serious comparison would fail because they are two different circumstances. But generally speaking, it seems to me the comparison is about treating a certain group of people as, not people, but a means for a so-called superior race of beings to thrive. In that sense, the comparison is valid.

But, of course, people don't like to be associated with real life public enemy, and so emotion and sensitivity comes into the mix. Fair enough, as I also think people who prefer Emet's side can and should defend their positions. It could make an interesting discussion, but we can't ignore the moral issue, so emotions would be there.

Wrong. It's invalid because:
1) one group is real human, and the other is just a bunch of pixels.
2) idc about "superior race" or anything like that. I just care more about emet. Though to be fair to you, I didn't mention about this in my previous comments. I do however already explained it during the debate in reddit, and they didn't even try to understand my point.

[linayar]

They aren't really new. They've been in use in the same context since as far back as Legion, which was actually still a time of success for WoW.



I see them used as insults pretty frequently, usually as a way to explain why someone is playing poorly. I've even been called a WoW refugee nonsensically a bunch of times, usually when someone gets angry in a prog or learning party. One time I had a healer in a dungeon get extremely angry that I was pulling big and "facing my back towards the mobs" as a tank, and they proceeded to repeatedly and baselessly accuse me of being a WoW refugee and went on a rant for the entire remainder of the dungeon about how all WoW players are stupid. I've seen similar things happen to friends; if you browse r/talesfromDF you'll see it fairly frequently in both the posts themselves, and the comments. A lot of the time when someone recounts a negative experience in a dungeon, people will immediately start saying things like "must have been a WoW refugee".

Well, all I can say is I've never even seen the term until last year. If it existed before, then it existed among fewer people, which supports the correlation with how many people from WoW publicly trying out FFXIV and even identifying themselves as a refugee.

It's not normal to repeatedly imply someone is stupid because they're struggling to register a code and think the mogstation UI could be improved. Some 14 players tend to be so ardent in their defense of the game as a whole, that they'll take bizarrely aggressive stances defending against extremely minor, and honestly well-founded quibbles and criticisms about certain aspects of the game. The Mog-station thing is just one example of many I've seen over the years.

Yeah, to be honest, this is just not a good example for me because it's not a problem I ever had. I agree in principle that it can be improved upon, but that's how I feel generally about everything. People comparing it to a Savage boss in difficulty (for example), however, is just not something I'd resonate with, even if I understand the joke.

"WoW bad, FFXIV good" isn't just some random thing someone made up to assail FFXIV. It's a humorous statement about community attitudes that came about because a lot of people started collectively picking up on what was going on.

Humorous or not, at the end of the day, it's just as dismissive as thinking players who play a certain way is a WoW refugee (unless they admitted it).

Wrong. It's invalid because:
1) one group is real human, and the other is just a bunch of pixels.

It may be invalid to classify you as such in real life, but without knowing further why you support Emet, it can be valid to say that you support the in-game equivalent.

[Kozh]

We do have a fairly large community, so I don't think that the presence of multiple complaints can suddenly make them not a tiny minority.

So we should just ignore it since the community decides it's "a minority"? It's biased anyway.

In a way, the growth of the community outside of the game makes it harder to police the community. That's why when people say this community is great, most are referring to their in-game experiences.

Bold of you to assume in-game experiences is that much better.

People sending death threats, for example, is not acceptable in FFXIV as far as I know. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that people who behave in such cannot represent the community in any way that would reflect on the community.

Oh please, you don't get to choose who represents the community or not.