Random Party Invites?

[Bixby]

Besides, I'm using a PS3 for this, it's hard to type things out at the best of times. But it shouldn't be too hard for them to ping me and ask if I could help them out. Otherwise yeah, I'll decline and move on. Sorry?

Does not compute. Why would it be any easier for someone else on a PS3 to start communicating than it would be for you?

In general, in most MMOs I've been in, it's considered rude to randomly invite someone to anything (party, guild, whatever). The only time I've seen it happening in FFXIV have been FATEs and when I've been killing hunting log mobs, and I give both of those a pass on being rude. FATEs, I could see, especially for a healer (who actually wants to heal). It's a heck of a lot easier to heal someone in your party than someone outside it, and in the middle of a FATE, there isn't a lot of time to type out pleasantries. Hunting logs do go faster if you're partied with someone who's after the same mob. And if the goal is speed, I don't feel the need to slow the process down myself with chit chat. I'm fine partying up, getting the kills, and dropping group without a word (beyond maybe a hello).

And that's the other side of the coin. For the couple of situations where I can see random invites being acceptable, I also don't see randomly declining, or accepting and then randomly dropping, being any less acceptable. Just not a big deal to me either way.

I've also had someone invite me to a group completely by accident. I don't know how. He's a member of my FC, though, and I recognized the name, so I accepted. It was in the middle of a FATE, so I imagine just random clicking on his part.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say you should accept the invites, or that the burden should be on you to communicate. I'm just saying for a couple specific instances, especially given the difficulty PS3 players without a keyboard have with communication, I see the typical etiquette as being a little different in this game. It's not ideal, but I get it, and I don't have a problem with it.