Why is the playerbase so mentally fragile now

[VelKallor]

You guys can spend infinite energy coddling someone with clinical social anxiety but I ain't wasting energy or time on that

If you are incapable, or unable, or unwilling, to express yourself without the use of multiple f words and other obscenities, id say thats a YOU problem.

[AnnRam]

This is why I disabled all interactions in game, tells, and chat disabled.

[Semirhage]

I've said it other places and I'll reiterate it here. FFXIV is relatively unique among MMOs in that its community takes smug, passive-aggressive My Way Or The Highway toxic casualism and pretends as if the Mean Girl approach is "nice".

[MoofiaBossVal]

The game does not facilitate player growth or the formation of friendships. You can have reached level cap and slogged through the 400+ hour long story and have never understood how to play your class or have found a friend.

Oldschool MMOs were hard. Take Vanilla WoW for instance. The world had packs of dangerous mobs that were very risky to take on by yourself, and it would take a long time to get to wherever you wanted to go, so you didn't want to die, and there could be a considerable monetary loss in repair bills and food and potions and arrows and so on. You could theoretically solo to cap farming easy mobs but it would take a long time, and you would be in the dark without other people sharing information with you. So you really wanted to play in a party with other people. There was no LFR or Duty Roulette to automate grouping for you. So you had to actually talk to other people and form bonds with them over your several hour long play session, be on your best behavior if you wanted people to group up with you again and for you to not get bad reputation on your server. And then you network with more and more people and before you know it, you're forming a big guild. If you didn't already know social etiquette, you would. If you make a mistake, it's okay because you're with friends and they will teach you how to get better.

Then LFD happened, where players could click a button and then be placed into a group without needing to socialize, for the purpose of doing 15-30 minute long bite sized content that was not difficult, and the stakes were further reduced as repair bills and food and potions and etc weren't expensive anymore. So people could spam dungeon roulette to level up and reach endgame having never formed a bond with other players or learned how to socialize. A mercenary mentality seeped into the game where players started viewing each other as cogs in a machine delaying them from getting their chores done. If someone is new and botches a mechanic, there are no bonds of friendship. Too much of a bother to stop and try to teach him, and those who do take the time to try to teach are often met with explosive outbursts. So it's easier to just kick the "underperformer" and replace them. This then leads to the playerbase becoming increasingly antisocial and the arise of toxicity as the mature oldtimer players are gradually replaced by a new generation.

Got a Scholar who couldn't heal a big pull and we all died. I used quick translation and just said "Recitation + Indom"

Lo and behold the scholar just went offline right after 2 seconds

FFXIV is no different with its roulette system, it's just that the player behavior is expressed a little differently due to the draconian chat policies. Rather than a player who botched something being instructed how to play better and exploding, he instead just silently quits.

Pulled a boss right as I saw Viewing Cutscene ended and someone freaked out and just stood there and started typing out an essay in alliance chat, saying I'm ruining someone else's experience. Best part is the sprout didn't even say anything.

Here, the game design of FFXIV (long cutscenes that can be interrupted by a boss pull) pits two different demographics of players against each other: the MMO audience where you have a group that is trying to minimize total manhours wasted, vs the individualistic mindset of visual novel players who want to go through the story at their own pace. As FFXIV's claim to popular fame is its story, you're naturally going to get a lot of story focused folks who aren't thinking about a MMO player's perspective on timely pulls.

[Ghost_of_Ebina]

I have seen the same type of reaction since the very early stages of online gaming, such as in MUDs / MUSHs / MUx style text-based online games that started appearing in the early 90s when the internet became available for use by everyone.
There were already "roles" existing back then with tanks, healers and what they used to call "ammo" (present-day DPS). People rage-quit all the time and some people racked up reputation for being rage-quitters etc. Back then net-literacy was still in its infant stages. I recall in one game I played the game developers created humorous emotes based on some particular rage-quitters which is a problem in its own right, but the issue has existed since the dawn of online gaming.

I do visit some other places such as reddit for other games, and basically similar stories are shared of people rage-quitting, etc. I am not totally convinced this is special in FF14.
(Currently I also play EVE Online, which is filled with "mature" people who rage-quit all the time... probably because of how you can lose everything if you die in a hostile area and PKers can strip all of your belongings, etc).

[Avoidy]

they don't even tell you what they've banned you for, so it's not like someone who got banned could be like "aha, yes. the way I asked that man to improve his tanking was the reason" and then show it to the rest of us as an example of how not to act

frankly, due to the asinine way in which moderation is handled in this game, it's way harder to know what's permissible than it ever should be. and since the tos says that "forcing a playstyle" is against the rules, that's such a broad concept that most people just go "eh, fuck it" and say nothing or play with their friends exclusively.

speaking as someone who's never been given any disciplinary issues, mainly because I just keep my mouth shut instead of commenting on all the stupid bullshit I used to see in dutyfinder. also OP is 100% right; this community wouldn't last a day in any other mmo because in other mmos they're not afraid to just tell you flat out that you suck if you suck, and they're not concerned with writing it out diplomatically because they don't give a shit. in many ways, it's what makes the xiv community special in a good way. but in some cases it's incredibly grating. going and playing other mmos has been like a breath of fresh air. just the blunt honesty and willingness to help people improve quickly without any of the walking-on-eggshells bullshit one puts up with in this game. hell, people joke around and act weird in other games because they're not worried someone will get butthurt and report them for it. in this game, I know most people don't say a word in content with randoms because even the smallest thing might get misunderstood or twisted into something it's not, and then the next thing you know you're in the gaol with a gm who won't tell you why you're there, but he'll happily put a strike on your account. it's so fucking stupid, honestly.

people acting like this isn't a big deal have got to be being facetious. Yeah, it hasn't happened to you. Until it does. And then you're wondering what the hell you even said, and you'll never know because they'll never tell you. Maybe you just said the word "hell" and it offended somebody. Maybe you called the boss ugly, but the illiterate guy in your group (who's basically been an anchor this whole time but everyone was too polite to say anything) misunderstood and thought you were talking about him, and now a day later you're in the gaol and the GM is like "haha I can't tell u why ur here but u've been a bad boy ". How can anyone respect this stupid-ass system, like for real. Vague ToS policies, emotionally fragile snitches, and opaque moderation policies, what a winning combination. When it comes to taking quick criticism (i.e. a critique that isn't run through a public relations firm and rewritten 3 times to make sure it's as report-proof as possible) without melting down I've literally met people who're more capable of taking feedback in maplestory. God damned maplestory. I'll just be like "hey don't go with that build bro, there's no reason to do it" and they're like "oh shit? thanks for the heads up bro." But in this game I'll be like "hey bro, you should turn on your stance so our dps stop dying" and they'll either ignore me or come up with some subjective argument about why all playstyles are valid including theirs that is literally stopping us from progressing.

[MaxCarnage]

See, if you do that, then you are advertising the fact you are using a parser, which you are NOT PERMITTED to use, additionally, the rule is, was, and always has been that IF you are using one, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. Dont harass others. Its that easy.

You can see if someone is doing sub-par DPS by looking at the emnity list. If a DRG is 8th on the list, they are either serverly under geared, or not playing properly. If a healer is 2nd on emnity, they are most likely overhealing.

And then you can watch them for a bit and figure it out for certain.

It's not rocket surgery.

In terms of "unsolicited advice", get over yourself? If someone offers up advice in a friendly or neutral way and you react with hostility because you "didn't ask", then you're self-centred. You're refusing to work as a team.

And you can try to claim that people only lash out if the advice giver is spewing toxicity and vulgarities, but that's a completely fabricated take.

While anecdotal, if my years of playing, I have seen on so many occasions someone offer up advice as simple as "you don't need to keep medica 2 up at all times" be responded to with anger.

It gets to the point where I'm actually surprised when someone takes advice, because usually they think they're better than that. I even thank people for taking the advice. Even if in the next run they do, they forget about it. I still make sure to thank them.

It's time for people to start humbling themselves. If someone is offering advice, maybe they know something you don't. But if you close yourself off to advice no matter how it's presented, then obviously you don't care about working as a team, and completing the object as a team. You only care about yourself.

Advice is not toxic.

[VelKallor]

And you can try to claim that people only lash out if the advice giver is spewing toxicity and vulgarities, but that's a completely fabricated take.

I have about 15- 20 years in multiplay gaming that says otherwise.

But, believe what you wish.

[IkaraGreydancer]

You can see if someone is doing sub-par DPS by looking at the emnity list. If a DRG is 8th on the list, they are either serverly under geared, or not playing properly. If a healer is 2nd on emnity, they are most likely overhealing.

And then you can watch them for a bit and figure it out for certain.

It's not rocket surgery.

In terms of "unsolicited advice", get over yourself? If someone offers up advice in a friendly or neutral way and you react with hostility because you "didn't ask", then you're self-centred. You're refusing to work as a team.

And you can try to claim that people only lash out if the advice giver is spewing toxicity and vulgarities, but that's a completely fabricated take.

While anecdotal, if my years of playing, I have seen on so many occasions someone offer up advice as simple as "you don't need to keep medica 2 up at all times" be responded to with anger.

It gets to the point where I'm actually surprised when someone takes advice, because usually they think they're better than that. I even thank people for taking the advice. Even if in the next run they do, they forget about it. I still make sure to thank them.

It's time for people to start humbling themselves. If someone is offering advice, maybe they know something you don't. But if you close yourself off to advice no matter how it's presented, then obviously you don't care about working as a team, and completing the object as a team. You only care about yourself.

Advice is not toxic.

1st off define proper please. And I mean definitively define it. Because I've heard following rotations means proper, I've also heard otherwise.

As for unsolicited advice saying "get over yourself" is quite funny. Because one could say the same for the person feeling like they need to give said unsolicited advice. (In my experience it's generally just one person that speaks up). No reason to get hostile when folks are friendly (which in my and many others experience most take it very well), but to call only them self centered if they do get hostile is interesting. From what I've seen from these sections of the community they only care about another's performance (as this context is normal style content) if it'll make a run slower. "They're wasting my time". Very rarely do I see a whole group speak up which tells me either they don't care,don't mind or don't find things dire enough to speak. So you (example) being the only one to speak can make you look self centered regardless of reason.

I dont believe people GENERALLY lash out at friendly advice. It seems like it's people being antagonistic or speaking up when they shouldn't that sparks most of these. Sure folks here will say they are being yet are they really? We've seen many times their idea of being friendly is far from it.

Next how do you know someone thinks they're better than that to take advice? Humans are complex people. Them being an ass doesn't mean they feel they're above it. Some lash back out of embarrassment.
Being humble is understanding your advice isn't always wanted or needed or even trusted. People giving advice don't always know what they're talking out. People who 100% close themselves off from advice are the minority and I'd bet my account on that.

[PercibelTheren]

It's time for people to start humbling themselves. If someone is offering advice, maybe they know something you don't. But if you close yourself off to advice no matter how it's presented, then obviously you don't care about working as a team, and completing the object as a team. You only care about yourself.
Advice is not toxic.

A good half of the "advice" I receive is utter nonsense. The other day I had a tank tell me off for "being a bad healer" in Bardam's Mettle, because they had to use Nebula. Tanks who don't know how to mitigate and blame the healers for their mistakes are very common.

Advice is not toxic, but being a dick is. People who are defending being a dick and calling it "advice" are just outing themselves as jerks.