Quote Originally Posted by Hyrist View Post
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.