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

[Hyrist]

You realize this means very little right? Of course the community is going to vote for itself lmao, this isn’t a surprise especially with the influx of new players.

If we're playing a game of numbers voting for themselves, World of Warcraft should be absolutely dominating those charts! (Note, this is said in satire if you didn't catch the tone.)

More to the point. FFXIV wouldn't even be up for voting if it did not qualify for a note to put it up for consideration. The fact that it's seen buy in large as a contender alone is a merit to its community. Of course those who enjoy their game and appreciate its community are going to vote. It's numbers are a testament to that statement, not a disqualifier. Your logic in this sort of boggles the mind. "We love this game and we like the people in it, but we can't vote for it because we love this game and play with the people we like in it."


It makes no sense.

if I risk an infraction because I'm telling player A that their refusal to do mechanic X is making it impossible to progress, then yes, the community is coddled

You don't. That's a strawman argument. Your poor social skills in relaying that message to the player in a manner of which that matches the minimum bar of common decency is what puts you at risk.(Not you personally, adapting the second case due to your use of first case in this hypothetical.) And rampant negativity would harm anyone's enjoyment. The message itself isn't a risk and most players are capable of relaying assistance and feedback on playstyles without issue. It's the outliers that get reported.

As far as these forums being an affect: It was the very same introspection I mentioned that lead to that conclusion, actually. It's not so much the difference of opinion but the bad faith arguments and overall negative tone which is such an incredibly stark contrast to those who are actually playing the game and enjoying themselves while doing so. (In the several friends groups I have this place is universally referred to as a cesspool. Anecdotal sure, but as I said, environments determine experiences.) Sure, the opinions differ, and tolerating them is a fair statement - to a degree. But there are limits and I know mine better.

It may not be that you are a miserable git - but the arguments most commonly seen here? Defiantly depict misery. Whether that's someone just coming to air grievances so they don't in their own groups, or they feel like it's valid critique doesn't change the negative contribution to the environment - and I found myself better for only visiting these places in the rarer downtime moments. I'll reiterate this - you may benefit from taking time to figure out what's affecting you and how to alleviate that - rather than simply pointing the blame.

For me? It's taking these forums in shifts.

[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.

[KizuyaKatogami]

snip

Again, i point you to the scottzone and lazypeon situations, which both happened to things regarding in game, not on forums or anything, and resulted in death threats and doxxing from the loving amazing community. You seem to have this misconception that the only toxicity here is one where people are being negative, but toxic casualism is rampant at least on the dc that i’m on, and it just promotes laziness and wastes other people’s time. People not aoeing in dungeons in endgame content, or dpsing on healer etc and then getting an attitude when you point it out to them.

[Axxion]

Again, i point you to the scottzone and lazypeon situations, which both happened to things regarding in game, not on forums or anything, and resulted in death threats and doxxing from the loving amazing community. You seem to have this misconception that the only toxicity here is one where people are being negative, but toxic casualism is rampant at least on the dc that i’m on, and it just promotes laziness and wastes other people’s time. People not aoeing in dungeons in endgame content, or dpsing on healer etc and then getting an attitude when you point it out to them.

this, i remember this and what happened to peon. The video he made about 14 had so many downvotes, comment section was really toxic. Took down the video and then people started to make threats against him.

[Hyrist]

Toxic casualism vs Toxic Elitism. Sounds more like a battle of buzzwords. I view toxicity as more of a general thing applied to people's attitudes rather than one force or another. People are more casual here - the toxic ones are just louder. But we've had plenty of toxic elitism in FFXIV. But yes, in general FFXIV encourages casual play. This does lead to a lower skill threshold among players. Not wrong there.

Of the two - I feel like the "Toxic Casualism" is a better demon to have in the community. To be dead honest. If favors acceptance vs denial. Yes, it's frustrating when people can't grasp simple concepts. But in the end the game is about enjoyment, and there are more than enough social tools in this game to find those closer to your own expectations - even if it is to just commiserate with at times.

We've developed a fairly stable elite player base by accepting that there are many of those that will never reach the bar, but encouraging all to do so. This isn't an this-or-that situation when it comes to our playerbase. We've got toxicity on both ends, but in general most people seem to just be good with just going with the flow of things. But usually I'm not forced to choose between Elitism or Casualism because for things like DR or Bozja I can ask for help with my friend groups and generally get a reply or two. I just work on myself as I go. (Though of late life has intervened in that case. I do admit I play this game casually as I have other ongoing hobbies and projects and there's only so much energy to go around. Awell.)

[Hyrist]

Again, i point you to the scottzone and lazypeon situations, which both happened to things regarding in game, not on forums or anything, and resulted in death threats and doxxing from the loving amazing community. You seem to have this misconception that the only toxicity here is one where people are being negative, but toxic casualism is rampant at least on the dc that i’m on, and it just promotes laziness and wastes other people’s time. People not aoeing in dungeons in endgame content, or dpsing on healer etc and then getting an attitude when you point it out to them.

People have attitudes. This is nothing new. It does not matter whether it's casual or elitism. Such behavior should not be tolerated and outliers in this regard exist in all games. That's not unheard of, it's not refuted. Remember what I sad about bad experiences are wont to be heard? This is part of that. The two you mention are cautionary tales about that sort of thing and players have been actively trying to push out those bad elements since. But for every one of those, there are many more content creators actually having a good experience thanks to (or in some cases in spite of) the community.

We're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but when you do comparisons, yes, there is a notable difference. Just like I note the difference between the general attitudes here, and in other parts of the community. Sorry you've been having a rough time with your DC though. Have you considered making a jump? (Please note the irony in that statement, it's meant as a lighthearted joke. We share the same DC.)

[Michieltjuhh]

Toxic casualism vs Toxic Elitism. Sounds more like a battle of buzzwords. I view toxicity as more of a general thing applied to people's attitudes rather than one force or another. People are more casual here - the toxic ones are just louder. But we've had plenty of toxic elitism in FFXIV. But yes, in general FFXIV encourages casual play. This does lead to a lower skill threshold among players. Not wrong there.

Of the two - I feel like the "Toxic Casualism" is a better demon to have in the community. To be dead honest. If favors acceptance vs denial. Yes, it's frustrating when people can't grasp simple concepts. But in the end the game is about enjoyment, and there are more than enough social tools in this game to find those closer to your own expectations - even if it is to just commiserate with at times.

We've developed a fairly stable elite player base by accepting that there are many of those that will never reach the bar, but encouraging all to do so. This isn't an this-or-that situation when it comes to our playerbase. We've got toxicity on both ends, but in general most people seem to just be good with just going with the flow of things. But usually I'm not forced to choose between Elitism or Casualism because for things like DR or Bozja I can ask for help with my friend groups and generally get a reply or two. I just work on myself as I go. (Though of late life has intervened in that case. I do admit I play this game casually as I have other ongoing hobbies and projects and there's only so much energy to go around. Awell.)

They're terms used to indicate the state of the community. While both harbor negativities, and ideally neither are present, they almost always will be based on the design of the game. In FF14, I call it casualism because it is encouraged to have others do the work for you. Less effort means less energy spent, and there is no incentive to put in effort, save a few commendations assuming people even noticed or cared. Whenever I do busywork content in FF14 such as duty roulettes or the Bozja engagements, I feel more and more inclined to just join the crowd and warm the floor while doing something more productive - for myself - in the background. I don't, because I find putting in effort in somewhat trivial content is similar to working out IRL - keeping your skills in shape - but the fact that that mentality is present and the thought had even crossed my mind is problematic in and of itself, because many think alike and do actually act upon it, which is how you get scenarios like the one I described in my previous post. I see it as no different than abusing others for personal gain.

In an elitist community, on the other hand, this kind of behavior gets monitored by the community itself, as the tools to do so are provided. This however ends up getting abused to extremes where the bar for entry gets set way too high and failure is no longer permitted in the slightest, which is also negative.

In FF14, the two mindsets can clash when people with the 'toxic casualism' approach start signing up for groups for harder content and get abruptly removed without a word - since you're not allowed to give the reason, as it would be seen as being toxic and prove the use of illegal third party software to measure performance (if it wasn't blatantly obvious from the amount of deaths). But since this type of (limited) player monitoring is only possible for a small amount of the content in the game, the 'toxic casualism' approach is far more rampant throughout most of its content.

[Hyrist]

Deaths being the more prevalent thing. You don't need third party tools to prove bad performances. If a person is surviving mechanics long enough to hit enrage, and damage is an issue, usually the innate variances in player skill and the low bar to pass muster when it comes to content (even at savage level) is provably easy enough to do so. So please don't reference the need for third party tools, it's just not true. The tools enable quicker turn around in the process of review-to-refinement for optimization. They are not a necessity in any regard. Those who are kicking without discussion out of fear of reprimand do so out of unneeded paranoia. (Or fail to openly address their own issues with communicating effectively.) Again each case is reviewed before the action is taken. If you're getting sent to gaol, you very well likely did something wrong. the GMs do have access to the chat logs when needed.

About Save the Queen zones and events.
I can't argue very much against personal impressions because to be blunt, those a personal impressions and they can't, by nature, reflect the whole. By contrast, while you feel discouraged to overperform because you are feeling social pressure of those who are underperforming, I feel differently on the matter. Whether it's hero complex or spite, I feel the need to preform even better in circumstances like that for both mine and others sakes. You may see it as falling victim the manipulations of people who don't care enough to perform on par. However I both cannot be bothered to make presumptions at people's circumstance and intentions in most situations, and actively try to prevent myself from doing so when I am somehow bothered.

I do what I can within my own tolerance levels regardless. If that serves to inspire others to do better or do worse is none of my concern. Most of those people I will likely not see again and it serves little to be upset about it. Instead I provide what information I can that will be helpful to others the next go around and leave it at that. If I'm concerned that the roulettes or wide group activities are too far below the threshold I go looking for a premade group, and so forth.

I tend to refer to those you address as "Toxic Casualism" as those who are oversensitive. I see this when I question the perspective of the elite as well. We have a decent number of maladjusted people in this world. I accept that as truth and move on. It just seems that there is a stronger insular community among gaming that views gaming skill as a sense of personal validation - which is something I do actively discourage. Developing skill to be able to pass content and try to be respectful of others (Including trying to develop said skill) is all part of common courtesy. But I don't take offense when someone's not up to my level. (Especially as my level of skill has declined with my availability and subsequent inability to adapt to changes.) It's not worth the time.

[Kahnom]

There is no different to being toxic right now or on a early access launch day.
If you can't control your own emotions and actions, then you should probably get the consequences for your actions.

can't believe I have to explain this ......

If you get it, Don't ask why.

[Jojoya]

Again, i point you to the scottzone and lazypeon situations, which both happened to things regarding in game, not on forums or anything, and resulted in death threats and doxxing from the loving amazing community. You seem to have this misconception that the only toxicity here is one where people are being negative, but toxic casualism is rampant at least on the dc that i’m on, and it just promotes laziness and wastes other people’s time. People not aoeing in dungeons in endgame content, or dpsing on healer etc and then getting an attitude when you point it out to them.

What happened in the cases of scottzone and lazypeon was not toxic casualism.

It was toxic fanaticism, or tribalism as some content creators are now referring to it. It was people who are so rabidly obsessed with something that they can't accept negative feedback. There was nothing casual about their responses at all.