FFXIV wins best community and best still playing at golden joystick awards

[Specialka]

Sort of agree... But defs "harder" than WoW's LFR.

No, even wow lfr is harder than duty roulette raid. The only thing "hard" is savage/ultimate if you can't learn something by heart.

[Caprias]

No, even wow lfr is harder than duty roulette raid. The only thing "hard" is savage/ultimate if you can't learn something by heart.

I find this whole difficulty to "toxicity" (god i hate this word) correlation quite interesting but there is kind of a roadblock.
Classic WoW and tbc is even easier than most things in FF but the community there today is also not that great..

[StrawberryZebra]

I'd rather choose to believe that people are nice unless proven otherwise.

Living your way just seems sad.

Perhaps they are, but it's disengenuous to presume that a lack of open hostility is the same thing as being nice. People are people, and some of those people will be arseholes. It's just the way of the world. I'm not saying don't give them the benefit of the doubt, only that it's inevitable there are going to be some problem players in the community, particularly now that it's grown quite dramatically in a short space of time.

FF14's community is good at sweeping the outbursts under the rug, but hiding it from view isn't the same thing as addressing the problems. The serious harassment, in my experience, takes place outside of the game itself on places like Discord, Twitch and Reddit. Which is the point I was making. They've plastered a vaneer of niceness over some very ugly cracks.

And this is what they've been awarded the Golden Joystick for - They've not "solved" the problem, just moved it out of game to put on a respectable front.

My only argument ever has been that the community that does speak out, is incredibly helpful and welcoming, as well as large. People can stew in silence if they want.

The none-verbal part can be the problem. You don't know if the healer who ressed you for the 20th time is fuming in silence while they're talking about you on Discord with their Friends, or if they're cool with it and don't want to point it out to make you a target.

In a real life setting you've got far more information to work with when people aren't talking to you. In game players tend to fill in the gaps with their own throughts and feelings at the time. Your avatar can only be minimally expressive afterall which makes them a blank canvas for other people to project onto. That can make you come across as passive aggressive to others even when you're not intending to do so.

[KrayZee33]

The none-verbal part can be the problem. You don't know if the healer who ressed you for the 20th time is fuming in silence while they're talking about you on Discord with their Friends, or if they're cool with it and don't want to point it out to make you a target.

In a real life setting you've got far more information to work with when people aren't talking to you. In game players tend to fill in the gaps with their own throughts and feelings at the time. Your avatar can only be minimally expressive afterall which makes them a blank canvas for other people to project onto. That can make you come across as passive aggressive to others even when you're not intending to do so.

How is that a problem though???

Is it paranoia or something?
Let them talk about it with their friends in discord, why would you care? Why do you need to know what that player thinks about you? All you need to know is if they are still playing like normal or if they start to bother/harrass you.

Do people truely believe this doesn't happen in games where people can freely insult you/others and can lash out?

I shit talk randoms in dungeons all the time (as in, it can come up whenever) in discord and we make fun of honest healers and do meme-jokes about them etc. etc.
Doesn't matter to that player, he will still happily run his dungeon because he will never know and will never be able to tell, which means his experience is at peak-level. As well as ours because we still had fun talking about him. (or rather, it won't get any better just because we start flaming his ass in chat)
If everyone would do that in WoW/LoL/SC2/Whatever as well, that'd be great. Because you know, everyone and their mom has talked about how "I got unjustified hate for just doing my job in a dungeon and actually it was the tank that didn't interrupt"-yada-yada and everyone actually realizes that it's not a fun experience when you are on the recieving end.
So I ask those people what they truely "gain" from being able to lash out without getting banned. Are they that insecure and pitiful that they feel better by making others feel worse (in a computer game?!)?

Oh and lets not start saying stuff like "if you won't tell, he will never improve". (just in case that's the point being made here)
It's not like people actually *shit* on people and that is considered constructive criticism... neither the person getting criticised will take it to heart, nor will the person lashing out articulate it in a way that's going to be helpful.

The thing is, the meassures taken lead to a more peaceful game experience.
You can't fucking change "humanity" with ToS.... but that's not the point of the award.
If you exclude the ones that are lashing out and only include those that are mentally fit enough to have a conversation you are filtering out most of the horrible stuff by default. If some of them remain hateful in their heart but remain quiet about and play like everyone else, they've grown up from what they were before as well.


I didn't really take a look but I doubt WoW's ToS is much different than FFXIV's ToS anyway. It's probably just that one chooses to act upon it and the other thinks they don't have to.

[Everythingzen]

Easy there Blizzard/WoW fan boy

oh please.. wake up. ff14 was a FAILURE of a Game. There is a Reason it has been redone. and its current success is all due to WoW Players leaving in masses looking for something new.

It now forced Blizzard to make WoW better again. Win win for everyone

[Katchii]

Perhaps they are, but it's disengenuous to presume that a lack of open hostility is the same thing as being nice. People are people, and some of those people will be arseholes. It's just the way of the world. I'm not saying don't give them the benefit of the doubt, only that it's inevitable there are going to be some problem players in the community, particularly now that it's grown quite dramatically in a short space of time.

FF14's community is good at sweeping the outbursts under the rug, but hiding it from view isn't the same thing as addressing the problems. The serious harassment, in my experience, takes place outside of the game itself on places like Discord, Twitch and Reddit. Which is the point I was making. They've plastered a vaneer of niceness over some very ugly cracks.

And this is what they've been awarded the Golden Joystick for - They've not "solved" the problem, just moved it out of game to put on a respectable front.

It's not up to the FFXIV admins to "address the problem" because the problem is that some people are assholes. What do you expect them to do? Educate them and try and train these assholes to not be assholes? That's not their job and it wouldn't work even if they tried.

Their concern is to keep the in-game experience as unblemished as possible by the behavior of those assholes. So that everyone can focus on enjoying playing the game rather than dealing with the kind of stuff that comes up with assholes being assholes.

They've absolutely done that.

You're saying that people just go to Discord, or some other out-of-game resource and they're assholes there. True. But that's not in-game and are completely optional and outside of the responsibility of the FFXIV admins to deal with.

I agree that the in-game feel or community isn't necessarily "nice" but the significant reduction in negative stuff certainly brings the baseline experience closer to neutral, and pushes it to "good" for most people. So, by comparison, the FFXIV in-game "community" feels nicer because of this.

I'm not disagreeing with what you basically saying, that the "nice community" is artificial, but IMO it's working as intended. YMMV.

[NineSpine]

It's not up to the FFXIV admins to "address the problem" because the problem is that some people are assholes. What do you expect them to do? Educate them and try and train these assholes to not be assholes? That's not their job and it wouldn't work even if they tried.

Their concern is to keep the in-game experience as unblemished as possible by the behavior of those assholes. So that everyone can focus on enjoying playing the game rather than dealing with the kind of stuff that comes up with assholes being assholes.

They've absolutely done that.

You're saying that people just go to Discord, or some other out-of-game resource and they're assholes there. True. But that's not in-game and are completely optional and outside of the responsibility of the FFXIV admins to deal with.

I agree that the in-game feel or community isn't necessarily "nice" but the significant reduction in negative stuff certainly brings the baseline experience closer to neutral, and pushes it to "good" for most people. So, by comparison, the FFXIV in-game "community" feels nicer because of this.

I'm not disagreeing with what you basically saying, that the "nice community" is artificial, but IMO it's working as intended. YMMV.

It's really a meaningless distinction. It would be like saying that you can't say the wait staff at a restaurant is very friendly unless you know they dont complain about customers in private.

[Katchii]

It's really a meaningless distinction. It would be like saying that you can't say the wait staff at a restaurant is very friendly unless you know they dont complain about customers in private.

It depends on what you're discussing.

Saying you had a nice time, enjoyed your visit and the wait staff was nice to you during your visit is different than saying the wait staff are nice people. You don't necessarily know that last one (let's not split hairs here, just saying you don't know how they act when they are away from you, I know it's possible to glean some things from certain interactions...that's not the point).

One is a description of your experience with that person and the other is a description of that actual person. Those aren't the same thing.

That's the distinction people are trying to make. The actual community in FFXIV isn't really any better or worse (some can argue differently, just saying people are people no matter what game they play adn assholes will be assholes, just the same) than any other online game community, you just can't see the bad parts because of how they enforce their rules. Therefore, the in-game community in FFXIV feels nicer, because your interactions are a LOT less likely to be negative, if you stick specifically to the in-game communication options.

[T-34]

How is it a myth? People get mad in multiplayer games. This is true of all multiplayer games from football and MMA to Battletoads and Chess. It's not like the entire community of FF14 just happen to be saints. A form of passive aggressive behavior could just be dropping group without saying anything, and I saw that happen a lot in FF14.

The FF14 pug community at least is one where you might get reported for mentioning that a tank might not be skilled enough to fulfill his role. Or that your healer cast a whole 5 spells in 2 minutes because they were busy looking at the scenery. Calling someone out for poor performance is considered targeted harassment in a game where you may need to perform well as a group to complete the objective. If you think that doesn't stew in people even a little then idk what to say.

FFXIV is game where the wilfully unwilling to to try know that if they're called out then they will be protected. That fosters an extremely passive-aggressive toxic atmosphere.
It is a modern totalitarian state-simulator where everybody has to have a fake smile on his face and follow the party line or else he will feel the "love" of the dear leader.

[NineSpine]

It depends on what you're discussing.

Saying you had a nice time, enjoyed your visit and the wait staff was nice to you during your visit is different than saying the wait staff are nice people. You don't necessarily know that last one (let's not split hairs here, just saying you don't know how they act when they are away from you, I know it's possible to glean some things from certain interactions...that's not the point).

One is a description of your experience with that person and the other is a description of that actual person. Those aren't the same thing.

That's the distinction people are trying to make. The actual community in FFXIV isn't really any better or worse (some can argue differently, just saying people are people no matter what game they play adn assholes will be assholes, just the same) than any other online game community, you just can't see the bad parts because of how they enforce their rules. Therefore, the in-game community in FFXIV feels nicer, because your interactions are a LOT less likely to be negative, if you stick specifically to the in-game communication options.

I think the framing here is off. When you say the "FF14 Community" what I think is the interactions that happens in regards to the game, not what people are doing totally separately from the game. For example, if I said "This community is racism-free", it doesn't mean we are guaranteeing nobody in the community is racist. We are guaranteeing that the space designated as the community is racism-free.

Theres also an implicit assumption that banning toxicity means the toxic people are just seething and unable to express it, which misses that those people are almost certainly having better experiences themselves by having their worst impulses throttled. Just because you have the propensity or even desire to be a dick doesn't mean that doing so makes things better for you.

- - - Updated - - -

FFXIV is game where the wilfully unwilling to to try know that if they're called out then they will be protected. That fosters an extremely passive-aggressive toxic atmosphere.
It is a modern totalitarian state-simulator where everybody has to have a fake smile on his face and follow the party line or else he will feel the "love" of the dear leader.

Right, just like toys r us is a modern totalitarian state simulator because you can't run around the building swearing at the children.

[OrangeJuice]

To be quite fair, FFFXIV has Blizzard and their incompetency to thank. More power to them though, they've been making the right steps so far - let's see how Endwalker kicks off.

I understand what you're trying to say, but FF14 is its own game with no similarities to WoW other than the genre. Blizzard deserves no thanks for any of FF's success.

[KrayZee33]

FFXIV is game where the wilfully unwilling to to try know that if they're called out then they will be protected. That fosters an extremely passive-aggressive toxic atmosphere.
It is a modern totalitarian state-simulator where everybody has to have a fake smile on his face and follow the party line or else he will feel the "love" of the dear leader.

That's a nice assumption. What made you think that people who can't scream/rage at everyone whenever they feel like, have these tendencies?
Isn't that just how it is for you? And shouldn't that guy/girl seek professional help? It doesn't sound healthy or simply put... "normal".

[NineSpine]

What is always amazing/hilarious to me is how many baby man-children throw a hissy fit when someone says "Hey, you know all those rules you have to follow in the real world to avoid being thrown out of places? We are going to have those in this online space."

It makes me wonder if the issue is that they never leave the house so they aren't aware that you aren't entitled to scream at and harass people with vulgarity in real life almost anywhere...

[Katchii]

I think the framing here is off. When you say the "FF14 Community" what I think is the interactions that happens in regards to the game, not what people are doing totally separately from the game. For example, if I said "This community is racism-free", it doesn't mean we are guaranteeing nobody in the community is racist. We are guaranteeing that the space designated as the community is racism-free.

Theres also an implicit assumption that banning toxicity means the toxic people are just seething and unable to express it, which misses that those people are almost certainly having better experiences themselves by having their worst impulses throttled. Just because you have the propensity or even desire to be a dick doesn't mean that doing so makes things better for you.

I agree with you. Wasn't trying to imply that the way I framed it is the only way to think about it. Just writing what my interpretation is for what, and why, some people say the things they do about it.

[NineSpine]

I agree with you. Wasn't trying to imply that the way I framed it is the only way to think about it. Just writing what my interpretation is for what, and why, some people say the things they do about it.

I hear you. I think the big thing that gets missed in these conversations is that people arent "toxic" or "not toxic". Game design pushes people in either direction. Obviously some people are just dicks, but most people act according to the context they are in.

[Musta]

You can only trust your own experience. F*** awards.

[StrawberryZebra]

Their concern is to keep the in-game experience as unblemished as possible by the behavior of those assholes. So that everyone can focus on enjoying playing the game rather than dealing with the kind of stuff that comes up with assholes being assholes.

They've absolutely done that.

I agree with you.

But I consider a games community to exist more than just inside the game. Particularly in when you consider Twitch, Discord etc. We're long past the time when a video game community was just the guys on you played Mortal Kombat on an arcade cabinet with.

For me, a game should be awarded the best community based on all of those channels outside of the game too. In those player moderated areas you get to see the side of the community that you can't, or won't, see in game. I'm not going to say thats Squenix's role to moderate those too but I do think it should be taken into account when deciding if its the best community or not.

[NineSpine]

I agree with you.

But I consider a games community to exist more than just inside the game. Particularly in when you consider Twitch, Discord etc. We're long past the time when a video game community was just the guys on you played Mortal Kombat on an arcade cabinet with.

For me, a game should be awarded the best community based on all of those channels outside of the game too. In those player moderated areas you get to see the side of the community that you can't, or won't, see in game. I'm not going to say thats Squenix's role to moderate those too but I do think it should be taken into account when deciding if its the best community or not.

Unless strangers are finding you on discord to badger you after runs, it doesn't matter. This is silly.

[Jtbrig7390]

For me, a game should be awarded the best community based on all of those channels outside of the game too.

This is dumb. Nether the dev's nore the community really has control on how people act outside the game. Anyone can say they are part of the FF14 (or any game) community then hop into discord/twitch and say some racist shit.

[Katchii]

I agree with you.

But I consider a games community to exist more than just inside the game. Particularly in when you consider Twitch, Discord etc. We're long past the time when a video game community was just the guys on you played Mortal Kombat on an arcade cabinet with.

For me, a game should be awarded the best community based on all of those channels outside of the game too. In those player moderated areas you get to see the side of the community that you can't, or won't, see in game. I'm not going to say thats Squenix's role to moderate those too but I do think it should be taken into account when deciding if its the best community or not.

That's silly. The game has absolutely no control for what people say or do outside the game, yet you want to "award" a game something that has nothing to do with the game. The only way you can objectively rate a game's community is by how they act in game.