These forums are weird

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Nice strawman you've got there.

There are people with honest critique. Then there are the people who are hecklers. The former actually have good arguments, and will engage in discussion with people they disagree with, defending their points and answering counterpoints.

The hecklers don't do that. They just call people names, berate and belittle people, often insist if you haven't cleared the latest Ultimate you can have no valid opinion, and generally are just total dicks to people. These people then get 10-20-30 likes and upvotes for low effort posts.

I make a distinction between people who have arguments and engage in discussion and those who engage in namecalling, personal attacks, and heckling those who ARE trying to.

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I can go through and dismantle the rest of your post as well, if you like, but I thought I'd start with dispelling that strawman you have. Though I do want to mention specifically this:



Have you read any of my posts where I critique or call out things I dislike about the game and offer arguments in support of those critiques as well as suggestions for solutions? I'm clearly not a "Negative Nancy", yet I've done so. You say "all the legitimate critique", meaning none at all comes from those who are not "Negative Nancies". So can you tell me which of my critiques was illegitimate and why it isn't legitimate?

...or did you just pull that out of your keister and not think you'd be challenged on it?

People who want to be mad and salty also want the illusion that they are an unchallenged majority. Many also want to bring other people down to their level to join them - "Misery loves company...even if it has to make it." This, they think, improves their chances of getting the changes they want. It also means they will attack and attempt to run off or silence dissenting voices, since that breaks the illusion that their positions are universal and unchallenged, and those voices of dissent would imply they need to compromise and reach neutral ground with those they disagree with, something they very much don't want to do.

So they get into personal attacks to try and drive off those people and/or silence them. Ironically, these are the same people that will defend their toxicity as "well, we've just been ignored and silenced, so that makes what we're doing understandable and okay".

Well, I'd start with this part of your previous post in particular. The one I specifically outlined in my previous post, and the part you seemed to have omitted. How odd. What you are doing, is raising yourself up on a pedestal of innocence while providing no proof as to why you deserve to stand upon it. In the very same post, you denounce wholesale all those who disagree with you as mere hecklers who wish only to commit to various rows. This is hardly behavior worthy of praise or admiration, and something I've noticed is rather prevalent around here.

Rest assured in the fact that I'm not calling you specifically out for this. Rather, this is an unworthy behavior shared by others not you and I'm issuing a call to be better. An equal one, mind. I'm not interested in taking sides, but I've definitely noticed which posters are seemingly vile villains and which are precursory exonerates is often very particular and selective.

[Renathras]

Well, I'd start with this part of your previous post in particular.

No, you can't deflect your use of a strawman with another, sorry.

Secondarily, my statement there wasn't a strawman. As I've said, there's a distinction between people offering critiques and people who are just shitposting hecklers. I omitted it because I didn't want to destroy you anymore than necessary, but if you wish it, I suppose I can...

Note the distinction between us:

You say ALL good posts/critiques are from negative players, and you write off what they do wrong as "well, they're just bitter and have every right to be" and/or "the positive players are doing the same thing so it's okay" - just as you attempted here to use you saying I used a strawman (which I didn't, mind you, but you thought it so) to defend yourself doing so, instead of to admit you were doing so and that it's wrong of you. You've put yourself and other negative posters on a pedestal while providing no proof as to why you deserve to stand upon it, and indeed, proving why you do not.

"you denounce wholesale all those who disagree with you"? I did no such thing. I even said there are people who offer critiques that I do not designate as hecklers because they are offering CRITIQUES not HECKLING, and they are engaging in good faith discussions and argument/counter-argument.

Indeed, had you read the top post of those two you just quoted, you'd have seen that.

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You very clearly ARE taking sides. That's the problem. You now attempt to present yourself as neutral when you already showed you were not.

As I said:

There are those offering critiques who are negative.
There are those offering critiques who are positive.
There are those heckling who are negative.

Note that the first and third are separate groups. The third does not enjoy the good faith of the first, and no amount of you trying to give it to them (and to call the second group the third) will do so.

Your mistake - and what gave your "side" away - was when you said all of the critiques of value are coming from the negative side and seem to insist that all positive people are not acting in good faith. Whether you intended the latter or not, you SAID the former outright.

EDIT:

I'm not going to read this entire thread because there's only so much brain damage I can take in one day, but the short version is that these forums comprise a tiny, angry majority. The best information we have is that FF14 has had steady, continuous growth through its lifetime with with a significant jump around the release of Endwalker. We also know that most of the people who started playing around Endwalker's launch are still playing, which is really unusual for even successful multiplayer games. In other words, veteran players are still playing and there is a steady stream of new people. People like the available content, they like the story, they like the direction the game is going in. Don't come to General Discussion for actual discussion about the game, come to laugh at people who insist that THIS patch is the one where they stop playing forever.

Source: https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/57565553.html
LuckyBancho's data in a handy graph: https://i.imgur.com/fHBrFWI.png

ALL of this, yes.