Positivity!

[Antharaes]

Looks at title of thread....erm...

[Donoman]

I'm enjoying the game as well and having a blast in my Free Company. I first started FFXIV in 2015 after Warlords of Draenor killed the first batch of players (go figure, lol), but I couldn't really get into it and went back to WoW, only finally throwing in the towel when Shadowlands nuked the second batch of players in 2020. It took me a while to like XIV, but I'm glad I gave it another go. This game is amazing; yes, it's not perfect, but they are constantly improving the game, even if it's at a snail's pace, and I'm hoping they can learn from the mistakes made during Endwalker and have the game come out even stronger with the next expansion.

These forums are mainly negative, but so are the official WoW forums. Even when WoW was considered the best in Wrath of the Lich King, the forums were full of complaints all day long. I remember players harassing Ghostcrawler, the lead developer, on the forums too; it was really bad at one point. XIV forums aren't too bad, and the criticism is often more constructive than not, but there is a lot of low-effort trolling, which is still pretty harmless but can get in the way of some good-quality discussion. Oh well, humans aren't perfect, and I hope you can just continue on with the positive vibes and remember that the "negative" posters here are also enjoying themselves by venting about the game, or else they would not be here.

[Iscah]

But why does Jack feel the need to tell other individuals to quit the game? He's not spreading positivity by doing that, he's attempting to remove negativity.

Because said individual has made it clear that they are not enjoying the game. It is normal and healthy to stop doing a completely optional activity that you are not enjoying.

And again, people don't try to "remove negativity" as soon as someone mentions they dislike a single thing about the game. It's when the one person goes on for a prolonged time and constantly dislikes major parts of the game, calling for it to be changed over something that is subjective personal taste and not an inherently poor design.

Not all complaints are equal. If someone joins a basketball club and then constantly talks about how the nets should be lower and larger and they should be allowed to kick the ball, it's not going to take long for the rest of the team to direct him to the soccer club.

I also think there's a conflation going on in this discussion between having positive opinions and being a positive participant in the forum, and vice versa. Someone can hold negative opinions but just present them calmly as part of the discussion – "I don't like it, I would prefer XYZ" – and without insulting people who think differently.

Bob might hold "a positive opinion" on one part of the game but he's acting negatively towards anyone who disagrees with him.

Nah, Jack is usually Bob. A toxic casual constantly, constantly defending the stupidification and lobotomization of job and encounter design, sneering that this game's spiral downward into what it is now is akshully a good thing, and if you don't like it then git out.

No, they're totally different.

Bob is saying "if you don't like what I like, you have bad taste."

Jack is saying "by your own words, you don't like this thing. Why not find a different thing?"

Also, I don't think Bob even counts as a "positive poster" (as if you can really divide people that simply) – he's a player of the game who likes Island Sanctuary but can't comprehend that people just might like different things to him and that's okay.

Likewise, Jack doesn't necessarily like every aspect of the game – maybe he dislikes IS and savage but enjoys the story and PVP. He's not even saying anything positive OR negative about the game by suggesting that this person who seems to derive no enjoyment from any part of the game could be happier somewhere else.

The forum is for seeking input from players of the game, but there's a basic... expectation? assumption? natural way of approaching your leisure time? that people play the game because they like at least some aspects of it as it currently is, not only if they can convince the devs to retool it into a different game entirely.

[Stormpeaks]

Fourth type: Jack says "you've made multiple threads detailing why you dislike the game and regularly make posts in other threads along those lines, while making little mention of what you do like. Perhaps you should find a game more to your tastes."

Jack is not John, though both have fair points – on the one hand, lots of people like the game as it is; on the other, an individual is showing constant dislike of what the other people like.

It is not toxic to suggest that the most likely solution is for the one person to find a different game than to keep expecting this game which they do not like at a deep level will suddenly pivot into something they do, and risk alienating the large number of people who enjoy the game as it currently exists.

Also, nobody gives the "go play another game" line over a single disagreement. People don't tell me to go play another game because I'm griping about Island Sanctuary or whatever. It's only when someone is consistently negative about the big picture of the game that you do have to start wondering why the person is still here and whether they're for some reason stuck in a mental rut that every game should appeal to them personally, when actually it's up to the player to find a game they like.

So let me get this straight, if I post in multiple threads about how terrible the content in the game is, and that I dont like the new dungeon types (variant etc), maybe I should just quit, no matter if I like housing and hanging out with my friends and spending a lot of time in the game with them, and also that I like gposes and glamours, even tho I still like multiple parts of the game, I should just quit since I am complaining about different parts of the game that I heavily dislike

[Boblawblah]

Also, I don't think Bob even counts as a "positive poster" (as if you can really divide people that simply) – he's a player of the game who likes Island Sanctuary but can't comprehend that people just might like different things to him and that's okay.

[Aravell]

Because said individual has made it clear that they are not enjoying the game. It is normal and healthy to stop doing a completely optional activity that you are not enjoying.

And again, people don't try to "remove negativity" as soon as someone mentions they dislike a single thing about the game. It's when the one person goes on for a prolonged time and constantly dislikes major parts of the game, calling for it to be changed over something that is subjective personal taste and not an inherently poor design.

Not all complaints are equal. If someone joins a basketball club and then constantly talks about how the nets should be lower and larger and they should be allowed to kick the ball, it's not going to take long for the rest of the team to direct him to the soccer club.

I also think there's a conflation going on in this discussion between having positive opinions and being a positive participant in the forum, and vice versa. Someone can hold negative opinions but just present them calmly as part of the discussion – "I don't like it, I would prefer XYZ" – and without insulting people who think differently.

Bob might hold "a positive opinion" on one part of the game but he's acting negatively towards anyone who disagrees with him.

I don't think your comparison quite works the same way, if someone joins a basketball club and constantly complains, they'll be shown the door because everyone is forced to listen to them. We are not forced in any way to read negative feedback on the forums. We can both agree that, in that example given, Bob is not a very nice person since he's dismissive to an entire subset of players. But I think Jack is also a jerk, because he's purposely chasing someone through multiple threads, reading all their negative feedback and then trying to tell them to quit.

I personally don't think there's any justification in telling someone to quit if they're not harming anyone, Jack may think he's doing a nice thing, but he's not. No one should be chased out like that, if people have negative feedback but are content to continue playing, there's no good reason to chase them out if that's all they're doing. If someone is trolling or attacking people directly, then yes, show them the door. But other than that, telling someone to quit is just trying to gatekeep them out from the game because they're not being positive enough.

[Iscah]

But I think Jack is also a jerk, because he's purposely chasing someone through multiple threads, reading all their negative feedback and then trying to tell them to quit.

This is a forum. The intent of a forum is that everyone uses the same spaces and comments on what other people say, or we're all just talking into the void.

The person who complains about everything is not a hypothetical – they were here, complaining about everything at every opportunity, starting thread after thread and inserting their opinion into everyone else's discussions. You could not simply ignore it, and you certainly didn't need to be "chasing them through multiple threads" to repeatedly encounter them or (even if you blocked them) people arguing with them so you'd see it all anyway.

It's not just about "not being positive enough" in their personal opinion, but the constant insistence that they are right and the game is objectively wrong, and the players who like it how it is are also wrong and dragging the game down. It's constantly berating people for being here trying to enjoy a thing in the space designated for talking about it.

The average person who doesn't like a thing doesn't need to be "gatekept" out of a forum for fans of the thing, because they will have already kept themself away because they're not a fan and don't want to spend their time discussing a thing they are not a fan of.

[CNitsah]

Also, nobody gives the "go play another game" line over a single disagreement. People don't tell me to go play another game because I'm griping about Island Sanctuary or whatever. It's only when someone is consistently negative about the big picture of the game that you do have to start wondering why the person is still here and whether they're for some reason stuck in a mental rut that every game should appeal to them personally, when actually it's up to the player to find a game they like.

Do you even read the forum. That line always get used. Even in opinion related to the cut of storylines like the trials one or the relic storylines, which are basically complains about removing things that were there since HW and ARR, and for the worst in both case. You tell "Yeah, I think puting trials in arr hurt the story telling, it isn't as guenine it was when separated" or "Yeah, the Manderville relics storyline is an excuse of a story, it was better before", and you get labeled as a "hater" and that "haters can leave if you don't like it"... You don't get need to be good at logic to draw the lines. The mix-up is everywhere. I know it's not everyone, but a freaking part of the community has cult mentality that go defensive as soon as you critic FFXIV or Yoshi-P (I could add Soken there, but seriously, who really has big grips against Soken).

[Iscah]

Do you even read the forum.

No, I amassed my tragically high post count without ever stopping to read anyone else's...

But seriously. I complain about stuff – details more than big picture – and I haven't been told to leave.

Someday I will leave of my own volition at whatever point the game stops appealing to me, or I feel like I've done everything I wanted to do in it.

[Tsumdere]

The game is fun and I love playing it even after 7 straight years.
I just finished the raid tier last week, and have been going through my BLU Log and clearing it out in anticipation of the new BLU raids. My friends and I are prepping for our TEA reclear/clear static that will start up after Fanfest. Another friend and I have collected a ton of housing ideas that we've been trying to figure out and set up together. I've been enjoying new PLD a lot as well.

Not to say the game doesn't have flaws. The 2 min meta sucks absolute balls and actually makes it harder to clear DPS checks where they exist since buffs desyncing can be a death sentence. The post-patch MSQ has been severely lacking. I don't have any nostalgia for any FF game except X, so I don't really care about the IV fanservice. Too many modern glams and not enough moderation to crack down on the nightclub scourge.

Even still - I like the game. I'm happy to play it.