[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Lane]

The TLDR was that the Japanese player base were baby raging about how bad Samurai is tuned right now.

I guess SAM must be a popular job there. I usually see DNC being in a particularly bad place, MCH not being much better, wide disappointment with DRK, and I've forgotten the others since I don't play them. I ended up switching mains from DNC to RPR because of it. May as well ride the OP train while it lasts. :P

You'll never find the toxicity in FF14 doing just regular dungeons or even normal mode raids, unless it's behind peoples back.

The negative stuff, sure. Unfortunately, there's the 'positive' element where someone is clearly dragging the group down but you can't say anything about it because there's usually at least one enabler in the group. "It's just a game", "you don't pay their sub", etc. That's not including the fandom doing everything they can to shut down any criticisms of the game.

[Krayvasion]

snip

I'm sure everyone has their own opinion of what is "rare" and what is "often" but as someone who went into of ex-trials a lot to e-peen my way into pink I have to say the opposite.
People just did it. And when it was shit, they stopped doing it and looked for another group.

What do you mean with "talk too much" btw... in chat?
Or do random people you play with use some kind of voice tool? That'd be a first for me. In the groups I join, it's usually expected to know the encounter and your position.

[Tojara]

I'm sure everyone has their own opinion of what is "rare" and what is "often" but as someone who went into of ex-trials a lot to e-peen my way into pink I have to say the opposite.
People just did it. And when it was shit, they stopped doing it and looked for another group.

What do you mean with "talk too much" btw... in chat?
Or do random people you play with use some kind of voice tool? That'd be a first for me. In the groups I join, it's usually expected to know the encounter and your position.

I don't play with anybody right now. My friends are on another data cluster so all of my experiences are just random ass party finders, I'm not sure if I could be clearer.

The dude joined the party finder to do the second savage fight with us, and while the group was ironing out details he started complaining it was taking too long and that the group "talks too much". Talking referring to typing, none of these groups are ever in discord generally, and I've only seen one group offer discord in most of my trials/savage PF thus far. Perhaps that will change when I try the third and fourth fight this week, but I'd presume most people don't want to invite you to your discord because of potentially awkward scenarios if you actively have to remove somebody.

As you know based on PF groups generally the descriptions detail what the strategies are, but I fail to see how it's bad to go over them once more. I don't watch streamers so when descriptions are literally referencing 'x' persons strategy, it helps to ask so you aren't a burden to your group. Somethings are far more clear like triangle to numbers, 2/4 on boss, 1/3 far, tank left/middle and dps right/corner. Knowing what the standard PF strategy is during the first few weeks is constantly in flux. I've done the first where fourfold chains were 3/8/13/18 (clockwise around the room), and I've seen other groups do 3/8/18/13 working for whatever reason. Some people use cardinals for the first flow on the second boss, others use the corners for whatever reason, which seems weird to me but I'll just go with what the group wants.

It's hard to tell how many people in the group are part of a static or not and I don't really believe going over several acronyms, positional or pretty barebones descriptions in the PF descriptions really does the group a disservice. If you have absolutely zero idea what they're referencing at all, that's a sign that you likely shouldn't be there. Asking questions in the first minute to be on the same page is way better than getting 8 minutes into the encounter and you flat out wipe because you neglected to clarify information from somewhat spotty PF descriptions.

So yeah, that was a random occurrence yesterday. Like I mentioned in the previous week as well, the group literally said that they were remaking because somebody was quote "holding the group hostage, and clearly doesn't know what they're doing". They left the PF, removed the person and requeued in the PF. Which I found funny because from the several attempts we had, that person only messed up once, while the persons mini-static that formed the group has messed up numerous times. Essentially bullying people out.

[ippollite]

Do you want spoilers?

absolutely not in this thread. Not for my benefit... i spoiled myself the second lulu started posting endwalker spoilers. But because this aint the thread for it.

[Wrecktangle]

You'll never find the toxicity in FF14 doing just regular dungeons or even normal mode raids, unless it's behind peoples back. A jaunt into party finder doing Savage difficulty is filled with people leaving after a couple of attempts, passive aggressive statements and flat out shit talking after they reform a group excluding the player in question. Yesterday when doing the second fight on Savage a player kept telling the group to stop talking, we talk too much and to just pull making it a 20 second timer. We pull, he fucks up and makes an excuse that his dog jumped on his controller (I see so many animals messing up attempts in the Savage PF BTW). It's whatever, we pull again and it's just people memeing from that point on about how people talk too much (which I found hilarious).

To be fair it also depends on your definition of toxicity. I've experienced a ton of it in regular content:

• I consider it toxic if in a normal raid with no deaths I'm top DPS as a PLD. That is offensive and lazy to me.
• I have players who are only pushing a button every 12 seconds instead of 2.x). It should not take longer to kill normal mode P1 than it does P1S. Both were pugs.
• I've had players not use their AOE in dungeons and just whine if I asked them to AOE and tell me to shut up.
• I've had a tank who literally did nothing but shield lob a single target over and over (and did not have aggro on all the mobs) and cry and make a post on the OF when we kicked him calling the group toxic despite repeated attempts to reason with them.
• I've had players sign up for 24 man raids and go AFK almost entirely and people wouldn't boot them and calling them out, just got me threatened. I'v even playtested this myself by doing it and when someone called me out, they got kicked... I did 98 DPS the entire run in Orbonne as a RDM. I also did not res anyone.
• I've had a player in my group who was in level 70 24 mans using an ilvl 90 weapon (and thus was doing abysmal damage) and when I mentioned that I think they equipped the wrong weapon, I was literally screamed at by multiple people for not minding my own business and kicked.

I rarely experience toxicity as I define it in savage content and I mostly pug it. People leaving after a few attempts isn't toxic. Passive aggressive statements aren't toxic, especially if the player is genuinely holding the group back. I also get annoyed when people take 20+ minutes to hash out positions, I've been pugging for what 3 expansions now and groups that do this I just leave because I know it's going to be an absolute shitshow. If you can't communicate and quickly identify your position, It's practically guaranteed you can't do mechanics or damage so I'm not going to waste my time. Sometimes you don't have to talk about every single mechanic after a pull, sometimes another pull is the way to go.

Now with that said, the guy still sounds like a clown and you're absolutely right that this community does seem to constantly make excuses when they wipe a group, and the animal one is actually pretty common. I just say fuck my bad, I'm sorry I suck when I make a mistake lol.

Like I mentioned in the previous week as well, the group literally said that they were remaking because somebody was quote "holding the group hostage, and clearly doesn't know what they're doing". They left the PF, removed the person and requeued in the PF. Which I found funny because from the several attempts we had, that person only messed up once, while the persons mini-static that formed the group has messed up numerous times. Essentially bullying people out.

I'd be curious on this one. Sometimes you really do just get scro's who blame other people for their mistakes, but at the same time FF14 can be weird with mechanics resolving making it look like someones fault when it's someone else's.

For instance I was doing P1S last week and the RDM kept dying to the first set of chains. I was supposed to swap with him one pull, but he was literally not in his spot and across the damn map in someone elses spot. The group proceeded to yell at me for not swapping and I had to explain to them that I couldn't swap with him, because he wasn't in his position. Sure I could have taken the time to figure out where he went, sprint over there and swap, and then wipe anyway because the player who was supposed to be in that spot was also there. Had I not said anything 6 (maybe even 7 depending on how delusional the RDM was) would have genuinely believed it was my mistake that wiped us.

[Ghost of Cow]

In fairness, my cat actually has jumped on my keyboard mid-fight before! Darn critters.

[Delever]

FFXIV isn't free of toxicity, it's just different. WoW's tends to be more direct, whereas FFXIV's is oppressive.

Regardless, I'm not sure where Yoshi-P is even getting the hate. Outside of a limited amount of spaces where people can speak critically, the western audience appears overwhelmingly in love with EW. It makes me wonder if the Japanese audiences have had issues with it and what they are.

It was mostly from JP players and did not concern the story but rather job balancing. Which tbf there are issues but overall the numbers between the jobs in this game are not that ridiculously off. Just people obsess over them way too much

[Ghost of Cow]

It was mostly from JP players and did not concern the story but rather job balancing. Which tbf there are issues but overall the numbers between the jobs in this game are not that ridiculously off. Just people obsess over them way too much

I dunno, some of the numbers really are pretty bad.

I'm not actually sure where people get the impression from that XIV is somehow so much more balanced than other games. The gaps in performance are pretty significant sometimes.

[Poppincaps]

To be fair it also depends on your definition of toxicity. I've experienced a ton of it in regular content:

• I consider it toxic if in a normal raid with no deaths I'm top DPS as a PLD. That is offensive and lazy to me.
• I have players who are only pushing a button every 12 seconds instead of 2.x). It should not take longer to kill normal mode P1 than it does P1S. Both were pugs.
• I've had players not use their AOE in dungeons and just whine if I asked them to AOE and tell me to shut up.
• I've had a tank who literally did nothing but shield lob a single target over and over (and did not have aggro on all the mobs) and cry and make a post on the OF when we kicked him calling the group toxic despite repeated attempts to reason with them.
• I've had players sign up for 24 man raids and go AFK almost entirely and people wouldn't boot them and calling them out, just got me threatened. I'v even playtested this myself by doing it and when someone called me out, they got kicked... I did 98 DPS the entire run in Orbonne as a RDM. I also did not res anyone.
• I've had a player in my group who was in level 70 24 mans using an ilvl 90 weapon (and thus was doing abysmal damage) and when I mentioned that I think they equipped the wrong weapon, I was literally screamed at by multiple people for not minding my own business and kicked.

I rarely experience toxicity as I define it in savage content and I mostly pug it. People leaving after a few attempts isn't toxic. Passive aggressive statements aren't toxic, especially if the player is genuinely holding the group back. I also get annoyed when people take 20+ minutes to hash out positions, I've been pugging for what 3 expansions now and groups that do this I just leave because I know it's going to be an absolute shitshow. If you can't communicate and quickly identify your position, It's practically guaranteed you can't do mechanics or damage so I'm not going to waste my time. Sometimes you don't have to talk about every single mechanic after a pull, sometimes another pull is the way to go.

Now with that said, the guy still sounds like a clown and you're absolutely right that this community does seem to constantly make excuses when they wipe a group, and the animal one is actually pretty common. I just say fuck my bad, I'm sorry I suck when I make a mistake lol.

People performing poorly is not really toxic. I think sometimes those of us who are veteran players forget how difficult MMOs actually are for new players. No matter what job I play, I could look at a Balance guide for 5 minutes and perform passably. For others, they would have to practice for hours and hours just to do decently on a target dummy and then they'd probably fall apart in an actual fight with mechanics. I know this because when I tried to get my girlfriend into FF14, she struggled just targeting enemies, let alone doing a full rotation.

There are a lot of people who are not normally MMO players who play FF14 for the story. They definitely suck and I've had a P3 run where I over doubled the next highest person (who was a tank), but you just gotta shrug it off. Most people who suck do so because they don't know what they're doing. Not because they're purposely trying to waste your time. It doesn't help that many people don't have ACT so they don't even know how they're performing and The Balance isn't nearly as ubiquitous as Icy Veins so most people don't know that exists either.

[Delever]

I dunno, some of the numbers really are pretty bad.

I'm not actually sure where people get the impression from that XIV is somehow so much more balanced than other games. The gaps in performance are pretty significant sometimes.

Dunno... I mean... https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/42/#class=Any

Heres the list. I honestly dont think the disparity within each role are that huge. There are definitely things to fix and bring the balance closer but its not that bad.

[Krayvasion]

I dunno, some of the numbers really are pretty bad.

I'm not actually sure where people get the impression from that XIV is somehow so much more balanced than other games. The gaps in performance are pretty significant sometimes.

They get that impression from being able to take literally any class combination whatsoever (as long as it's reasonable in terms of role balance and diversity) and still clear the content as long as you do the mechanics. It's really all it takes. At least for people that have a "right" (as in "they know what they are doing") to complain about balance
a 10% difference in performance between best and worst DPS is meaningless if you have enough DPS to deal with everything and only have 1 of each class in the first place
Especially since the last % in FFXIV are actually the easy % compared to WoW, where the last % are usually the hardest parts of the fight. So you don't even have to learn difficult mechanics due to the DPS difference, when you progress through the raids.

Even in E12S-2, the last minute or so is just standing there doing your rotation. The hardest and most important part in E12S-1 would be skipping lions but that's not doable if you progress (or even farm?) anyway.
P1S last minute or so is the same.

Didn't raid any more in this patch cycle, but it's pretty much always the good ol' "I'm gonna do 5x AoEs and then a big AoE with 10 second casttime"

[Tojara]

I mean I've only really seen people putting in zero effort "generally" in Alliance raids, so I promptly just stay away from them as content aside from doing it once. It's like main scenario levels of AFK, except in the main scenario roulettes there isn't too much people can do to speed the thing up any. Doing puppets bunker or any of the ShB Alliance roulettes (let alone the SB ones) can take up to an hour depending on who you end up getting, and there hasn't been an Alliance roulette where you don't notice people purposely dying, or generally just afk.

I don't have damage meters in FF installed and the only time I ever really look at the them is when I'm doing savage encounters, as somebody in my PF is bound to have it installed. I can only think of a single time where my group was running into deadweight and eventually that player just filtered themselves out. Generally it's not so much people playing their rotation wrong, it's just chain dying on an encounter more than anything else.

Do I occasionally run into slow roulettes? Yeah, but tanks generally blast AoE anyways even if the people in your group aren't doing anything of the sort. It just doesn't bother me enough because the added time really isn't that bad, and worst case scenario you run into an expert roulette where a trust might be faster lol.

[Maljinwo]

Still no word on when the Free Trial will come back?

I have friends waiting on the sidelines

[StrawberryZebra]

That would be relevant if we were discussing an absolute dps gain; it isn't a positive feedback loop like you describe it when discussing the gain in percentage.

In terms of percentages per point, you're right in that it drops as you gain more stats. Even if the absolute gain per stat increases it's still less proportional to your overall performance.

We're at a stage now where all the gear is entry level and those stats are at their most impactful in terms of performance gains. Which was the point I was trying to make. I'm not making any judgements on if it's worth doing or not, I'm completely unqualified to make that kind of distinction, but I am saying that it's going to be an unconditional performance gain.

I don't even really think it's streamer culture. I think "streamer culture" is 100% an excuse for Xeno to show his real self, something he normally has to hide. He's the same kind of person who says "Everyone is an asshole, and if they're being nice, they're lying". He says that a lot, enough to confirm that he genuinely believes it. He does not think there are genuinely nice people out in the world, and anyone who is, is lying.

It's an excuse assholes make to justify being an asshole. The reality is there are tons of people who are nice both in public and in private. And if they write toxic rants in their diary, what does it matter if they're treating everyone else well?

When I said streaming culture I wasn't talking only about the streamers themselves but their audiences too. There are some who want to see games being torn apart - And Streamers who are willing to do that to capture an audience for themselves. Stirring up controversy gets people to watch your content to prove you wrong as well as people who agree with you and are already invested. It also gets lots of engagement in chat too which Streamers love. Its an easy way to drive up your viewer and sub counts which is why you see lots of hyperbole and extreme view points being thown around.

I'm sure for some it's an excuse to put their true self out there and be shielded from the consequences. Both the streamers and viewers. The problem is that spills out from Twitch to other platforms and, in some cases, ends up with people using it to attack game developers while still not facing any consequences for it. The fact there's an audience for this kind of content helps normalise the view that "everyone is going it".

I don't watch streams so the names and lost on me. I have seen some of Xeno's videos crop up as reccomended for me on Youtube and from the Thumbnail alone I can tell he's the kind of person who would use the phrase "Absolute fucking dogshit" way too often for my liking. And probably calls anyone who disagrees with him either a "retard" or "smooth brain". Which is why I've never watched his content.

People performing poorly is not really toxic.

For me the lines are

• intentionally performing badly. Hopefully this one is self-explanatory
• People whos performance is holding the group back and they show no interest in improving. I can understand people making mistakes, particularly on new content. When we're 10 pulls in and you've had the mechanic explained to you and you're still making the same mistakes and it's causing the rest of the group to fail then you need to go.
• Knowingly not being ready for the content. I don't mean not having consumables and such, but just not being at the right level with your job to perform well enough. As you rightly say, MMOs are hard and it takes a long time for new players to adjust. FF14 has the added complexity of also having 20 different jobs and getting to a level where you can perform on all of them is going to take time. If you know you're not good enough for the content then you shouldn't join a group for it imo.
• You're intentionally trying to spoil things for other players. Also self explanatory.

In short, bad play is only toxic when it's negatively impacting on other players. I don't mean inconveniencing them slightly, but outright making their experience worse because you're in the group. I don't mind if people are bad but are making an honest effort, these are the players who will improve over time. The ones who are disrespectful of other peoples time and effort I get rid of if at all possible.

I appreciate that other people are going to have different criteria, but these are the ones I tend to use as a guideline for if bad play is toxic or not.

[Wrecktangle]

People performing poorly is not really toxic. I think sometimes those of us who are veteran players forget how difficult MMOs actually are for new players. No matter what job I play, I could look at a Balance guide for 5 minutes and perform passably. For others, they would have to practice for hours and hours just to do decently on a target dummy and then they'd probably fall apart in an actual fight with mechanics. I know this because when I tried to get my girlfriend into FF14, she struggled just targeting enemies, let alone doing a full rotation.

There are a lot of people who are not normally MMO players who play FF14 for the story. They definitely suck and I've had a P3 run where I over doubled the next highest person (who was a tank), but you just gotta shrug it off. Most people who suck do so because they don't know what they're doing. Not because they're purposely trying to waste your time. It doesn't help that many people don't have ACT so they don't even know how they're performing and The Balance isn't nearly as ubiquitous as Icy Veins so most people don't know that exists either.

I'm not talking about poor play though really; I'm talking about weaponized incompetence/unadulterated laziness. You can say that "most" people aren't doing it intentionally and honestly you're probably right, but I don't know I just don't buy it. Sure it's purely "feels" and anecdotal evidence, but it's not even an uncommon occurrence. There's almost guaranteed to be a single, let alone multiple players, who fit in this category every time I step foot into easier content.

I say this because you can pick almost any job and simply mash your 1 key over and over while using oGCDs on CD (and it doesnt even matter what order as long as you press them) and out DPS a well performing tank. I know because I've tested it. THAT's how low the floor is.

Do I occasionally run into slow roulettes? It just doesn't bother me enough because the added time really isn't that bad, and worst case scenario you run into an expert roulette where a trust might be faster lol.

You're assuming that your circumstances are the same as mine. I might only have 1 hour in a given night to play. A group of mindless sloths can easily eat up 60% of my total playtime in an evening in a single expert roulette. If I got a team of completely average players it would take 30% of it. If I get lucky and get a team of equals? 12-15% of it.

Those are staggering differences to the quality of my limited time to play. It's the same reason why I like people to come prepared and focused in savage so what little time I do have is well met. I wish I could play with a static again, I really do; but between other commitments I just risk holding 7 other people back. I've been on the other end of that stick and it sucks.

[Kaelwryn]

Still no word on when the Free Trial will come back?

I have friends waiting on the sidelines

Soon (tm), Yoshi-P mentioned they'll be able to comment on the status of things in the coming weeks in a recent interview.

[Cthulhu 2020]

FFXIV isn't free of toxicity, it's just different. WoW's tends to be more direct, whereas FFXIV's is oppressive.

Regardless, I'm not sure where Yoshi-P is even getting the hate. Outside of a limited amount of spaces where people can speak critically, the western audience appears overwhelmingly in love with EW. It makes me wonder if the Japanese audiences have had issues with it and what they are.

I think this conversation has been hashed to death, and while FFXIV is not free from toxicity, it's certainly quite low. And if you consider "Don't be a dick" pressure from the TOS as "oppressive toxicity" then idk what to say beyond... why do people enjoy being aggressively toxic? Why do they need to be openly toxic?

I know it's impossible for certain humans to act with civility towards others, but it's never too late to learn.

[Merie]

I hope PLD gets their dps buffed as their rotation seems significantly more prone to falling apart from a mistake or from having an uncooperative boss either zipping around or phase changing. Provided the boss cooperates and you can execute the new rotation perfectly, with all your buffs staying up long enough for everything to go off just right, your reward is less relative dps than in ShB. Sadly Square basically isn't even talking about the job, so we're probably in the forgotten column this expack.

[The Offbeat]

I hope PLD gets their dps buffed as their rotation seems significantly more prone to falling apart from a mistake or from having an uncooperative boss either zipping around or phase changing. Provided the boss cooperates and you can execute the new rotation perfectly, with all your buffs staying up long enough for everything to go off just right, your reward is less relative dps than in ShB. Sadly Square basically isn't even talking about the job, so we're probably in the forgotten column this expack.

I'm fairly certain YoshiP did say Paladins need some help in a recent interview, along with the big gun dps (BLM/SAM)

[kail]

I hope PLD gets their dps buffed as their rotation seems significantly more prone to falling apart from a mistake or from having an uncooperative boss either zipping around or phase changing. Provided the boss cooperates and you can execute the new rotation perfectly, with all your buffs staying up long enough for everything to go off just right, your reward is less relative dps than in ShB. Sadly Square basically isn't even talking about the job, so we're probably in the forgotten column this expack.

They'll likely get some buffs in the patch. No reason to have any tank fall as far behind as PLD currently. If it were in order of "difficulty" it should be DRK>GNB>PLD>WAR in that order but by a narrow margin.