Why casual players don't 'just leave'

[NamiRocket]

My experience in-game (anecdotal as it might be) with the community hasn't been great either honestly.

I've dealt with elitism in MMOs before, but somehow FF14 manages to be just as bad as the rest while also trying to tout its self as friendly and welcoming and it's quite the paradox.

Nah, I'm here to back you up on this one. The community in this game, not just on the forums, is about as toxic as you'd expect for any big, popular online video game in 2025. Everyone tries to pretend it isn't, but it absolutely is, and I think people lying about that honestly makes it worse than if we all just admitted it was true.

I think you're generally better off than you might be in similar games when just running normal duty finder stuff and content out and about in the world, but party finder in particular can often be a cesspool of toxicity and I've learned slurs I never even knew existed by just standing in Limsa for a little while. And I don't know if it's because the GMs' reports get continuously swamped with piddly, baby shit like, "This cat girl is standing too close to me, plz ban," but they don't seem to do anything with regards to the especially heinous shit people say or do, either.

[Mawlzy]

Nah, I'm here to back you up on this one. The community in this game, not just on the forums, is about as toxic as you'd expect for any big, popular online video game in 2025. Everyone tries to pretend it isn't, but it absolutely is, and I think people lying about that honestly makes it worse than if we all just admitted it was true.

I think you're generally better off than you might be in similar games when just running normal duty finder stuff and content out and about in the world, but party finder in particular can often be a cesspool of toxicity and I've learned slurs I never even knew existed by just standing in Limsa for a little while. And I don't know if it's because the GMs' reports get continuously swamped with piddly, baby shit like, "This cat girl is standing too close to me, plz ban," but they don't seem to do anything with regards to the especially heinous shit people say or do, either.

It's rare I have anything flattering to say about Reddit, but the Q&A FF14 megathread is a genuinely helpful resource. I relied on it heavily when I started out.

[NegativeS]

I kinda gave up on reporting players when I noticed the same underground Lalafell BRDs bots in the same places on Maduin. There's some gibberish names out there TO THIS DAY that I first saw two years ago.

Like, holy hell SE, just kill the singing molerats already. I know you have the power.

I'll put my WoW tinfoil hat back on, and say that the reason they aren't chomping at the bit to get rid of bots is because every bot account is a subscription fee they're raking in.

After all, shareholders don't care about things like 'virtual economies' and 'playability'. If the number on their asset portfolio goes up, they're happy.

[Daralii]

I'll put my WoW tinfoil hat back on, and say that the reason they aren't chomping at the bit to get rid of bots is because every bot account is a subscription fee they're raking in.

After all, shareholders don't care about things like 'virtual economies' and 'playability'. If the number on their asset portfolio goes up, they're happy.

They've never exactly been honest with their reports. It's always registered service accounts, which is a completely meaningless metric since it presumably includes trial accounts and abandoned ones. The number cannot go down, so at worst it'll look like it's stagnant.

[Striker44]

Nah, I'm here to back you up on this one. The community in this game, not just on the forums, is about as toxic as you'd expect for any big, popular online video game in 2025. Everyone tries to pretend it isn't, but it absolutely is, and I think people lying about that honestly makes it worse than if we all just admitted it was true.

I think you're generally better off than you might be in similar games when just running normal duty finder stuff and content out and about in the world, but party finder in particular can often be a cesspool of toxicity and I've learned slurs I never even knew existed by just standing in Limsa for a little while. And I don't know if it's because the GMs' reports get continuously swamped with piddly, baby shit like, "This cat girl is standing too close to me, plz ban," but they don't seem to do anything with regards to the especially heinous shit people say or do, either.

I think the PF vs. DF thing is important. Take me for example - I very rarely do anything via PF. The stuff I do in DF - I've seen very, very, very few "toxic" people in the ~10 years I've been playing this game. Compare this to back when I left WoW in 2021 and the equivalent content there was filled with "toxic" people. Yes, I wouldn't doubt that as you go up the ladder into more "elite" content, you're going to find more toxic players, but they seem to be almost exclusively there in FFXIV. The regular old playerbase at large is a huge breath of fresh air compared to the regular old playerbase I find in other multiplayer games (Destiny 2 right now gives WoW a run for its money).

[Hallarem]

Hell, I think I'm starting to understand why I struggled in FF14 and not WoW; I can't cope with the rigidness and monotone. Even this game's PVP I kept trying to approach it from the angle of "I can still make an interesting play even if I lose" when in reality, it's still one big orchestrated number and well, just because Tchaikovsky pulled off using cannons in his piece, doesn't mean I can with MCH.

Though the irony of leaving WoW for FF14 in part because I thought the playerbase would be nicer was quite the yolk on my face, boy I tell ya'.
+++

MMO players will always be MMO players, I've had a lot of time to think about this as a former WoW player too. But I think the "culture" is just better and more enforced in FFXIV if that makes sense. A lot of WoW players, both pve/pvp/rp have their defenses up already because you expect to be attacked, so its a very unhealthy culture to get into unless youre in a group, and that bubbles things a lot.

In FFXIV you get slammed if you try to harrass or employ any harsher language. I thought of it as fake positivity at a start, but little by little. I think its much like how laws work, when you penalize and make treating other people like crap against the rules, people will start to think in a more friendly manner, and start to think "yeah, maybe treating others like trash and having my defenses up constantly is a bad idea". So I think its very much that. I think I've had one person melt down in pve content that I've seen and even they apologized after it. And a few fights in dungeons, but even then we completed them. While in WoW a lot of curses wouldve flown and the party wouldve disbanded xD

Dont even get me started on the rp community in WoW compared to FFXIV, the drama going on in WoW would send FFXIV players into fullblown panic attacks. Theres a reason why everyone has their guards up, even in RP.

[Jeeqbit]

In FFXIV you get slammed if you try to harrass or employ any harsher language. I thought of it as fake positivity at a start, but little by little. I think its much like how laws work, when you penalize and make treating other people like crap against the rules, people will start to think in a more friendly manner, and start to think "yeah, maybe treating others like trash and having my defenses up constantly is a bad idea".

I've noticed a lot of people who come from WoW think this. But believe it or not, there are games on the internet that just flat out have friendly communities, rules or not.

In part it just has to do with who the game attracts. To be blunt, when you are looking for a game, are you gonna be interested by:
- Fighting, war, competition, blood
or
- Moogles, loporrits, lalafells, viera, miqos, a peaceful society where all the Grand Companies get along, a really slow emotional and empathetic story with music to fit, with some PG fighting mixed in (oh and there is some competitive stuff if you get that far or hear about it).

The types of people interested by the latter are probably, on average, a lot... nicer, than the former.

What reinforces this is how the game is actually designed:

• Commendations to make you think about what people did well rather than what they did wrong.
• A first-time bonus to reward helping first timers.
• A sprout icon so you actually know they are new/returning and not just trolling.
• Story content being easy so it's not worthwhile to be toxic when you wipe. Easier to just pull and try again which will probably work.
• A novice network to answer questions.
• A clear distinction between a Practice party and a Duty Complete party.

Of course, the rules being enforced helps prevent mouthy people from being rude as well. And people have a poor attitude sometimes despite all these things. But it's not just solely the rules.

Probably the rule with the bigger impact is the one that prevents people discussing DPS numbers, because from my understanding, that led to a culture where people were openly judged and attacked for it in WoW.

[Hallarem]

Any "lose" factor will lead into tempers rising, people are people and people have bad days. I just think rules and systems lead to healthier gaming. I don't doubt that there are friendly communities out there, War Thunder had a really nice one, very wholesome when I played years ago. But MMO's? There will always be something boiling beneath. I think FFXIV does it right and the community speaks for itself, its much healthier than WoW in terms of how people communicate, as heated as things get on the forums.

Rules and regulations help, WoW is practically the wild west unless you reaaaaaally want to go the full mile of reporting someone.

In FFXIV I reported a person along with others co-signing to the report who was purposefully trying to troll roleplayers, and he was gone within an hour, after a few warnings in /tell to stop. But they continued, so we placed our report in.

[Gunz_Zbestest]

Casuals are just that. We enjoy playing for fun without pressure to improve everytime. I've enjoyed the storyline, and the class core quests. Crafting tribal quests. Never been a hard-core gamer, mid-core at best. You meet all sorts of funny and interesting people along the way. It's like buying a ticket to a drive-in theater. You've seen this film before but it's night-time, you don't know who you're going to pull up to beside and if someone else is going to laugh at the scenes.

[CaedemSanguis]

I will never understand how casuals sub for more than 1 month each expansion (sub 3 weeks before the next expansion launch, do 7.1-7.5 MSQ + M1-M12 + Whole alliance raid + trials + all dungeons + relic + other content, once 8.0 is released do the MSQ and then resub 3 weeks before 9.0, etc)

Im a raider and i've already been unsubbed for 4 months since DT release